History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814

by M. Mignet

CHAPTER IV

FROM APRIL, 1791, TO THE 3OTH SEPTEMBER. THE END OF THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY

The French revolution was to change the political state of Europe, to terminate the strife of kings among themselves, and to commence that between kings and people. This would have taken place much later had not the kings themselves provoked it. They sought to suppress the revolution, and they extended it; for by attacking it they were to render it victorious. Europe had then arrived at the term of the political system which swayed it. The political activity of the several states after being internal under the feudal government, had become external under the monarchical government. The first period terminated almost at the same time among all the great nations of Europe. Then kings who had so long been at war with their vassals, because they were in contact with them, encountered each other on the boundaries of their kingdoms, and fought. As no domination could become universal, neither that of Charles V. nor that of Louis XIV., the weak always uniting against the strong, after several vicissitudes of superiority and alliance, a sort of European equilibrium was established. In order to appreciate ulterior events, I propose to consider this equilibrium before the revolution.

Austria, England, and France had been, from the peace of Westphalia to the middle of the eighteenth century, the three great powers of Europe. Interest had leagued the two first against the third. Austria had reason to dread the influence of France in the Netherlands; England feared it on the sea. Rivalry of power and commerce often set them at variance, and they sought to weaken or plunder each other. Spain, since a prince of the house of Bourbon had been on the throne, was the ally of France against England. This, however, was a fallen power: confined to a corner of the continent, oppressed by the system of Philip II., deprived by the Family Compact of the only enemy that could keep it in action, by sea only had it retained any of its ancient superiority. But France had other allies on all sides of Austria: Sweden on the north; Poland and the Porte on the east; in the south of Germany, Bavaria; Prussia on the west; and in Italy, the kingdom of Naples. These powers, having reason to dread the encroachments of Austria, were naturally the allies of her enemy. Piedmont, placed between the two systems of alliance, sided, according to circumstances and its interests, with either. Holland was united with England or with France, as the party of the stadtholders or that of the people prevailed in the republic. Switzerland was neutral.

In the last half of the eighteenth century, two powers had risen in the north, Russia and Prussia. The latter had been changed from a simple electorate into an important kingdom, by Frederick-William, who had given it a treasure and an army; and by his son Frederick the Great, who had made use of these to extend his territory. Russia, long unconnected with the other states, had been more especially introduced into the politics of Europe by Peter I. and Catharine II. The accession of these two powers considerably modified the ancient alliances. In concert with the cabinet of Vienna, Russia and Prussia had executed the first partition of Poland in 1772; and after the death of Frederick the Great, the empress Catharine and the emperor Joseph united in 1785 to effect that of European Turkey.

The cabinet of Versailles, weakened since the imprudent and unfortunate Seven Years' War, had assisted at the partition of Poland without opposing it, had raised no obstacle to the fall of the Ottoman empire, and even allowed its ally, the republican party in Holland, to sink under the blows of Prussia and England, without assisting it. The latter powers had in 1787 re-established by force the hereditary, stadtholderate of the United Provinces. The only act which did honour to French policy, was the support it had happily given to the emancipation of North America. The revolution of 1789, while extending the moral influence of France, diminished still more its diplomatic influence.

England, under the government of young Pitt, was alarmed in 1788 at the ambitious projects of Russia, and united with Holland and Prussia to put an end to them. Hostilities were on the point of commencing when the emperor Joseph died, in February, 1790, and was succeeded by Leopold, who in July accepted the convention of Reichenbach. This convention, by the mediation of England, Russia, and Holland, settled the terms of the peace between Austria and Turkey, which was signed definitively, on the 4th of August, 1791, at Sistova; it at the same time provided for the pacification of the Netherlands. Urged by England and Prussia, Catharine II. also made peace with the Porte at Jassy, on the 29th of December, 1791. These negotiations, and the treaties they gave rise to, terminated the political struggles of the eighteenth century, and left the powers free to turn their attention to the French Revolution.

The princes of Europe, who had hitherto had no enemies but themselves, viewed it in the light of a common foe. The ancient relations of war and of alliance, already overlooked during the Seven Years' War, now ceased entirely: Sweden united with Russia, and Prussia with Austria. There was nothing now but the kings on one side, and people on the other, waiting for the auxiliaries which its example, or the faults of princes might give it. A general coalition was soon formed against the French revolution. Austria engaged in it with the hope of aggrandizement, England to avenge the American war, and to preserve itself from the spirit of the revolution; Prussia to strengthen the threatened absolute power, and profitably to engage its unemployed army; the German states to restore feudal rights to some of their members who had been deprived of them, by the abolition of the old régime in Alsace; the king of Sweden, who had constituted himself the champion of arbitrary power, to re-establish it in France, as he had just done in his own country; Russia, that it might execute without trouble the partition of Poland, while the attention of Europe was directed elsewhere; finally, all the sovereigns of the house of Bourbon, from the interest of power and family attachments. The emigrants encouraged them in these projects, and excited them to invasion. According to them, France was without an army, or at least without leaders, destitute of money, given up to disorder, weary of the assembly, disposed to the ancient régime, and without either the means or the inclination to defend itself. They flocked in crowds to take a share in the promised short campaign, and formed into organized bodies under the prince de Condé, at Worms, and the count d'Artois, at Coblentz.

The count d'Artois especially hastened the determination of the cabinets. The emperor Leopold was in Italy, and the count repaired to him, with Calonne as minister, and the count Alphonse de Durfort, who had been his mediator with the court of the Tuileries, and who had brought him the king's authority to treat with Leopold. The conference took place at Mantua, and the count de Durfort returned, and delivered to Louis XVI. in the name of the emperor, a secret declaration, in which was announced to him the speedy assistance of the coalition. Austria was to advance thirty- five thousand men on the frontier of Flanders; the German states, fifteen thousand on Alsace; the Swiss, fifteen thousand on the Lyonese frontier; the king of Sardinia, fifteen thousand on that of Dauphiné; Spain was to augment its army in Catalonia to twenty thousand; Prussia was well disposed in favour of the coalition, and the king of England was to take part in it as elector of Hanover. All these troops were to move at the same time, at the end of July; the house of Bourbon was then to make a protest, and the powers were to publish a manifesto; until then, however, it was essential to keep the design secret, to avoid all partial insurrection, and to make no attempt at flight. Such was the result of the conferences at Mantua on the 20th May, 1791.

Louis XVI., either from a desire not to place himself entirely at the mercy of foreign powers, or dreading the ascendency which the count d'Artois, should he return at the head of the victorious emigrants, would assume over the government he had established, preferred restoring the government alone. In general Bouillé he had a devoted and skilful partisan, who at the same time condemned both emigration and the assembly, and promised him refuge and support in his army. For some time past, a secret correspondence had taken place between him and the king. Bouillé prepared everything to receive him. He established a camp at Montmedy, under the pretext of a movement of hostile troops on the frontier; he placed detachments on the route the king was to take, to serve him for escort, and as a motive was necessary for these arrangements, he alleged that of protecting the money despatched for the payment of the troops.

The royal family on its side made every preparation for departure; very few persons were informed of it, and no measures betrayed it. Louis XVI. and the queen, on the contrary, pursued a line of conduct calculated to silence suspicion; and on the night of the 20th of June, they issued at the appointed hour from the château, one by one, in disguise. In this way they eluded the vigilance of the guard, reached the Boulevard, where a carriage awaited them, and took the road to Châlons and Montmedy.

On the following day the news of this escape threw Paris into consternation; indignation soon became the prevailing sentiment; crowds assembled, and the tumult increased. Those who had not prevented the flight were accused of favouring it. Neither Bailly nor Lafayette escaped the general mistrust. This event was considered the precursor of the invasion of France, the triumph of the emigrants; the return of the ancient régime, and a long civil war. But the conduct of the assembly soon restored the public mind to calmness and security. It took every measure which so difficult a conjuncture required. It summoned the ministers and authorities to its bar; calmed the people by a proclamation; used proper precautions to secure public tranquillity; seized on the executive power, commissioned Montmorin, the minister of foreign affairs, to inform the European powers of its pacific intentions; sent commissioners to secure the favour of the troops, and receive their oath, no longer made in the name of the king, but in that of the assembly, and lastly, issued an order through the departments for the arrest of any one attempting to leave the kingdom. "Thus, in less than four hours," says the marquis de Ferrières, "the assembly was invested with every kind of power. The government went on; public tranquillity did not experience the slightest shock; and Paris and France learned from this experience, so fatal to royalty, that the monarch is almost always a stranger to the government that exists in his name."

Meantime Louis XVI. and his family were drawing near the termination of their journey. The success of the first days' journeys, the increasing distance from Paris, rendered the king less reserved and more confident; he had the imprudence to show himself, was recognised, and arrested at Varennes on the 21st. The national guard were under arms instantly; the officers of the detachments posted by Bouillé sought in vain to rescue the king; the dragoons and hussars feared or refused to support them. Bouillé, apprised of this fatal event, hastened himself at the head of a regiment of cavalry. But it was too late; on reaching Varennes, he found that the king had left it several hours before; his squadrons were tired, and refused to advance. The national guard were on all sides under arms, and after the failure of his enterprise, he had no alternative but to leave the army and quit France.

The assembly, on hearing of the king's arrest, sent to him, as commissioners, three of its members, Pétion, Latour-Maubourg, and Barnave. They met the royal family at Epernay and returned with them. It was during this journey, that Barnave, touched by the good sense of Louis XVI., the fascinations of Marie Antoinette, and the fate of this fallen family, conceived for it an earnest interest. From that day he gave it his assiduous counsel and support. On reaching Paris the royal party passed through an immense crowd, which expressed neither applause nor murmurs, but observed a reproachful silence.

The king was provisionally suspended: he had had a guard set over him, as had the queen; and commissioners were appointed to question him. Agitation pervaded all parties. Some desired to retain the king on the throne, notwithstanding his flight; others maintained, that he had abdicated by condemning, in a manifesto addressed to the French on his departure, both the revolution, and the acts which had emanated from him during that period, which he termed a time of captivity.

The republican party now began to appear. Hitherto it had remained either dependent or hidden, because it had been without any existence of its own, or because it wanted a pretext for displaying itself. The struggle, which lay at first between the assembly and the court, then between the constitutionalists and the aristocrats, and latterly among the constitutionalists themselves, was now about to commence between the constitutionalists and the republicans. In times of revolution such is the inevitable course of events. The partisans of the order newly established then met and renounced differences of opinion which were detrimental to their cause, even while the assembly was all powerful, but which had become highly perilous, now that the emigration party threatened it on the one hand, and the multitude on the other. Mirabeau was no more. The Centre, on which this powerful man had relied, and which constituted the least ambitious portion of the assembly, the most attached to principles, might by joining the Lameths, re-establish Louis XVI. and constitutional monarchy, and present a formidable opposition to the popular ebullition.

This alliance took place; the Lameth party came to an understanding with André and the principal members of the Centre, made overtures to the court, and opened the club of the Feuillants in opposition to that of the Jacobins. But the latter could not want leaders; under Mirabeau, they had contended against Mounier; under the Lameths against Mirabeau; under Pétion and Robespierre, they contended against the Lameths. The party which desired a second revolution had constantly supported the most extreme actors in the revolution already accomplished, because this was bringing within its reach the struggle and the victory. At this period, from subordinate it had become independent; it no longer fought for others and for opinions not its own, but for itself, and under its own banner. The court, by its multiplied faults, its imprudent machinations, and, lastly, by the flight of the monarch, had given it a sort of authority to avow its object; and the Lameths, by forsaking it, had left it to its true leaders.

The Lameths, in their turn, underwent the reproaches of the multitude, which saw only their alliance with the court, without examining its conditions. But supported by all the constitutionalists, they were strongest in the assembly; and they found it essential to establish the king as soon as possible, in order to put a stop to a controversy which threatened the new order, by authorizing the public party to demand the abolition of the royal power while its suspension lasted. The commissioners appointed to interrogate Louis XVI. dictated to him a declaration, which they presented in his name to the assembly, and which modified the injurious effect of his flight. The reporter declared, in the name of the seven committees entrusted with the examination of this great question, that there were no grounds for bringing Louis XVI. to trial, or for pronouncing his dethronement. The discussion which followed this report was long and animated; the efforts of the republican party, notwithstanding their pertinacity, were unsuccessful. Most of their orators spoke; they demanded deposition or a regency; that is to say, popular government, or an approach towards it. Barnave, after meeting all their arguments, finished his speech with these remarkable words: "Regenerators of the empire, follow your course without deviation. You have proved that you had courage to destroy the abuses of power; you have proved that you possessed all that was requisite to substitute wise and good institutions in their place; prove now that you have the wisdom to protect and maintain these. The nation has just given a great evidence of its strength and courage; it has displayed, solemnly and by a spontaneous movement, all that it could oppose to the attacks which threatened it. Continue the same precautions; let our boundaries, let our frontiers be powerfully defended. But while we manifest our power, let us also prove our moderation; let us present peace to the world, alarmed by the events which take place amongst us; let us present an occasion for triumph to all those who in foreign lands have taken an interest in our revolution. They cry to us from all parts: you are powerful; be wise, be moderate, therein will lie your highest glory. Thus will you prove that in various circumstances you can employ various means, talents, and virtues."

The assembly sided with Barnave. But to pacify the people, and to provide for the future safety of France, it decreed that the king should be considered as abdicating, de facto, if he retracted the oath he had taken to the constitution; if he headed an army for the purpose of making war upon the nation, or permitted any one to do so in his name; and that, in such case, become a simple citizen, he would cease to be inviolable, and might be responsible for acts committed subsequent to his abdication.

On the day that this decree was adopted by the assembly, the leaders of the republican party excited the multitude against it. But the hall in which it sat was surrounded by the national guard, and it could not be assailed or intimidated. The agitators unable to prevent the passing of the decree, aroused the people against it. They drew up a petition, in which they denied the competency of the assembly; appealed from it to the sovereignty of the nation, treated Louis XVI. as deposed since his flight, and demanded a substitute for him. This petition, drawn up by Brissot, author of the Patriote Français, and president of the Comité des Recherches of Paris, was carried, on the 17th of July, to the altar of the country in the Champ de Mars: an immense crowd flocked to sign it. The assembly, apprized of what was taking place, summoned the municipal authorities to its bar, and directed them to preserve the public tranquillity. Lafayette marched against the crowd, and in the first instance succeeded in dispersing it without bloodshed. The municipal officers took up their quarters in the Invalides; but the same day the crowd returned in greater numbers, and with more determination. Danton and Camille Desmoulins harangued them from the altar of the country. Two Invalides, supposed to be spies, were massacred and their heads stuck on pikes. The insurrection became alarming. Lafayette again repaired to the Champ de Mars, at the head of twelve hundred of the national guard. Bailly accompanied him, and had the red banner unfurled. The crowd was then summoned to disperse in the name of the law; it refused to retire, and, contemning authority, shouted, "Down with the red flag!" and assailed the national guard with stones. Lafayette ordered his men to fire, but in the air. The crowd was not intimidated with this, and resumed the attack; compelled by the obstinacy of the insurgents, Lafayette then ordered another discharge, a real and effective one. The terrified multitude fled, leaving many dead on the field. The disturbances now ceased, order was restored; but blood had flown, and the people never forgave Bailly or Lafayette the cruel necessity to which the crowd had driven them. This was a regular combat, in which the republican party, not as yet sufficiently strong or established, was defeated by the constitutional monarchy party. The attempt of the Champ de Mars was the prelude of the popular movements which led to the 10th of August.

While this was passing in the assembly and at Paris, the emigrants, whom the flight of Louis XVI. had elated with hope, were thrown into consternation at his arrest. Monsieur, who had fled at the same time as his brother, and with better fortune, arrived alone at Brussels with the powers and title of regent. The emigrants thenceforth relied only on the assistance of Europe; the officers quitted their colours; two hundred and ninety members of the assembly protested against its decrees; in order to legitimatize invasion, Bouillé wrote a threatening letter, in the inconceivable hope of intimidating the assembly, and at the same time to take upon himself the sole responsibility of the flight of Louis XVI.; finally, the emperor, the king of Prussia, and the count d'Artois met at Pilnitz, where they made the famous declaration of the 27th of August, preparatory to the invasion of France, and which, far from improving the condition of the king, would have imperilled him, had not the assembly, in its wisdom, continued to follow out its new designs, regardless at once of the clamours of the multitude at home, and the foreign powers.

In the declaration of Pilnitz, the sovereigns considered the cause of Louis XVI. as their own. They required that he should be free to go where he pleased, that is to say, to repair to them that he should be restored to his throne; that the assembly should be dissolved, and that the princes of the empire having possessions in Alsace, should be reinstated in their feudal rights In case of refusal, they threatened France with a war in which all the powers who were guarantees for the French monarchy would concur. This declaration, so far from discouraging, only served to irritate the assembly and the people. Men asked only another, what right the princes of Europe had to interfere in the government of France; by what right they gave orders to great people, and imposed conditions upon it; and since the sovereigns appealed to force, the people of France prepared to resist them. The frontiers were put in a state of defence; the hundred thousand men of the national guard were enrolled, and they awaited in calm serenity the attack of the enemy, well convinced that the French people, on their own soil and in a state of revolution, would be invincible.

Meantime, the assembly approached the close of its labours; civil relations, public taxation, the nature of crimes, their prosecution, and their punishment, had been by it as wisely regulated as were the public and constitutional relations of the country. Equality had been introduced into the laws of inheritance, into taxation, and into punishments; nothing remained but to unite all the constitutional decrees into a body and submit them to the king for his approval. The assembly was growing weary of its labours and of its dissensions; the people itself, who in France ever become tired of that which continues beyond a certain time, desired a new national representation; the convocation of the electoral colleges was therefore fixed for the 5th of August. Unfortunately, the members of the present assembly could not form part of the succeeding one; this had been decided before the flight to Varennes. In this important question, the assembly had been drawn away by the rivalry of some, the disinterestedness of others, the desire for anarchy on the part of the aristocrats, and of domination on that of the republicans. Vainly did Duport exclaim: "While every one is pestering us with new principles of all sorts, how is it overlooked that stability is also a principle of government? Is France, whose children are so ardent and changeable, to be exposed every two years to a revolution in her laws and opinions?" This was the desire of the privileged classes and the Jacobins, though with different views. In all such matters, the constituent assembly was deceived or overruled; when the ministry was in question, it decided, in opposition to Mirabeau, that no deputy could hold office; on the subject of re-election, it decided, in opposition to its own members, that it could not take place; in the same spirit, it prohibited their accepting, for four years, any post offered them by the prince. This mania of disinterestedness soon induced Lafayette to divest himself of the command of the national guard, and Bailly to resign the mayoralty. Thus this remarkable epoch entirely annihilated the constituent body.

The collection of the constitutional decrees into one body led to the idea of revising them. But this idea of revision gave great dissatisfaction, and was almost of no effect; it was not desirable to render the constitution more aristocratic by after measures, lest the multitude should require it to be made more popular. To limit the sovereignty of the nation, and, at the same time, not to overlook it, the assembly declared that France had a right to revise its constitution, but that it was prudent not to exercise this right for thirty years.

The act of the constitution was presented to the king by sixty deputies; the suspension being taken off, Louis XVI. resumed the exercise of his power; and the guard the law had given him was placed under his own command. Thus restored to freedom, the constitution was submitted to him. After examining it for several days, "I accept the constitution," he wrote to the assembly; "I engage to maintain it at home, to defend it from all attacks from abroad; and to cause its execution by all the means it places at my disposal. I declare, that being informed of the attachment of the great majority of the people to the constitution, I renounce my claim to assist in the work, and that being responsible to the nation alone, no other person, now that I have made this renunciation, has a right to complain."

This letter excited general approbation. Lafayette demanded and procured an amnesty in favour of those who were under prosecution for favouring the king's flight, or for proceedings against the revolution. Next day the king came in person to accept the constitution in the assembly. The populace attended him thither with acclamations; he was the object of the enthusiasm of the deputies and spectators, and he regained that day the confidence and affection of his subjects. The 29th of September was fixed for the closing of the assembly; the king was present; his speech was often interrupted by applause, and when he said, "For you, gentlemen, who during a long and arduous career have displayed such indefatigable zeal, there remains one duty to fulfil when you have returned to your homes over the country: to explain to your fellow-citizens the true meaning of the laws you have made for them; to counsel those who slight them; to clarify and unite all opinions by the example you shall afford of your love of order, and of submission to the laws." Cries of "Yes! yes!" were uttered by all the deputies with one common voice. "I rely on your being the interpreters of my sentiments to your fellow-citizens." "Yes! yes!" "Tell them all that the king will always be their first and most faithful friend; that he needs their love; that he can only be happy with them and by their means; the hope of contributing to their happiness will sustain my courage, as the satisfaction of having succeeded will be my sweetest recompense"

"It is a speech worthy of Henry IV.," said a voice, and the king left the hall amidst the loudest testimonials of love.

Then Thouret, in a loud voice, and addressing the people, exclaimed: "The constituent assembly pronounces its mission accomplished, and that its sittings now terminate." Thus closed this first and glorious assembly of the nation. It was courageous, intelligent, just, and had but one passion —a passion for law. It accomplished, in two years, by its efforts, and with indefatigable perseverance, the greatest revolution ever witnessed by one generation of men. Amidst its labours, it repressed despotism and anarchy, by frustrating the conspiracies of the aristocracy and maintaining the multitude in subordination. Its only fault was that it did not confide the guidance of the revolution to those who were its authors; it divested itself of power, like those legislators of antiquity who exiled themselves from their country after giving it a constitution. A new assembly did not apply itself to consolidating its work, and the revolution, which ought to have been finished, was recommenced.

The constitution of 1791 was based on principles adapted to the ideas and situation of France. This constitution was the work of the middle class, then the strongest; for, as is well known, the predominant force ever takes possession of institutions. When it belongs to one man alone, it is despotism; when to several, it is privilege; when to all, it is right; this last state is the limit, as it is the origin, of society. France had at length attained it, after passing through feudalism, which was the aristocratic institution, and absolute power, which was the monarchical institution. Equality was consecrated among the citizens, and delegation recognised among the powers; such were to be, under the new system, the condition of men, and the form of government.

In this constitution the people was the source of all powers, but it exercised none; it was entrusted only with election in the first instance, and its magistrates were selected by men chosen from among the enlightened portions of the community. The latter constituted the assembly, the law courts, the public offices, the corporations, the militia, and thus possessed all the force and all the power of the state. It alone was fit to exercise them, because it alone had the intelligence necessary for the conduct of government. The people was not yet sufficiently advanced to participate in power, consequently, it was only by accident, and in the most casual and evanescent manner, that power fell into its hands; but it received civic education, and was disciplined to government in the primary assemblies, according to the true aim of society, which is not to confer its advantages as a patrimony on one particular class, but to make all share in them, when all are capable of acquiring them. This was the leading characteristic of the constitution of 1791; as each, by degrees, became competent to enjoy the right, he was admitted to it; it extended its limits with the extension of civilization, which every day calls a greater number of men to the administration of the state. In this way it had established true equality, whose real character is admissibility, as that of inequality is exclusion. In rendering power transferable by election, it made it a public magistracy; whilst privilege, in rendering it hereditary by transmission, makes it private property.

The constitution of 1791 established homogeneous powers which corresponded among themselves, and thus reciprocally restrained each other; still, it must be confessed, the royal authority was too subordinate to popular power. It is never otherwise: sovereignty, from whatever source derived, gives itself a feeble counterpoise when it limits itself. A constituent assembly enfeebles royalty; a king who is a legislator limits the prerogatives of an assembly.

This constitution was, however, less democratic than that of the United States, which had been practicable, despite the extent of the territory, proving that it is not the form of institutions, but the assent which they obtain, or the dissent which they excite, which permits or hinders their establishment. In a new country, after a revolution of independence, as in America, any constitution is possible; there is but one hostile party, that of the metropolis, and when that is overcome, the struggle ceases, because defeat leads to its expulsion. It is not so with social revolutions among nations who have long been in existence. Changes attack interests, interests form parties, parties enter into contest, and the more victory spreads the greater grows opposition. This is what happened in France. The work of the constituent assembly perished less from its defects than from the attacks of faction. Placed between the aristocracy and the multitude, it was attacked by the one and invaded by the other. The latter would not have become sovereign, had not civil war and the foreign coalition called for its intervention and aid. To defend the country, it became necessary that it should govern it; then it effected its revolution, as the middle class had effected its own. It had its 14th of July in the 10th of August; its constituent assembly, the convention; its government, which was the committee of public safety; yet, as we shall see, without emigration there would have been no republic.

THE NATIONAL LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

CHAPTER V

FROM THE 1ST OF OCTOBER, 1791, TO THE 21ST OF SEPTEMBER, 1792

The new assembly opened its session on the 1st October, 1791. It declared itself immediately the national legislative assembly. From its first appearance, it had occasion to display its attachment to the actual state of things, and the respect it felt for the authors of French liberty. The book of the constitution was solemnly presented to it by the archivist Camus, accompanied by twelve of the oldest members of the national representation. The assembly received the constitutional act standing and uncovered, and on it took the oath, amidst the acclamations of the people who occupied the tribunes, "to live free or perish!" A vote of thanks was given by it to the members of the constituent assembly, and it then prepared to commence its labours.

But its first relations with the king had not the same character of union and confidence. The court, doubtless hoping to regain under the legislative, the superior position which it had lost under the constituent assembly, did not employ sufficient management towards a susceptible and anxious popular authority, which was then considered the first of the state. The assembly sent a deputation of sixty of its members to the king to announce its opening. The king did not receive them in person, and sent word by the minister of justice that he could not give them audience till noon on the following day. This unceremonious dismissal, and the indirect communication between the national representatives and the prince, by means of a minister, hurt the deputation excessively. Accordingly, when the audience took place, Duchastel, who headed the deputation, said to him laconically: "Sire, the national legislative assembly is sitting; we are deputed to inform you of this." Louis XVI. replied still more drily: "I cannot visit you before Friday." This conduct of the court towards the assembly was impolitic, and little calculated to conciliate the affection of the people.

The assembly approved of the cold manner assumed by the deputation, and soon indulged in an act of reprisal. The ceremony with which the king was to be received among them was arranged according to preceding laws. A fauteuil in the form of a throne was reserved for him; they used towards him the titles of sire and majesty, and the deputies, standing and uncovered on his entrance, were to sit down, put on their hats, and rise again, following with deference all the movements of the prince. Some restless and exaggerated minds considered this condescension unworthy of a sovereign assembly. The deputy Grangeneuve required that the words sire and majesty should be replaced by the "more constitutional and finer" title of king of the French. Couthon strongly enforced this motion, and proposed that a simple fauteuil should be assigned to the king, exactly like the president's. These motions excited some slight disapprobation on the part of a few members, but the greater number received them eagerly. "It gives me pleasure to suppose," said Guadet, "that the French people will always venerate the simple fauteuil upon which sits the president of the national representatives, much more than the gilded fauteuil where sits the head of the executive power. I will say nothing, gentlemen, of the titles of sire and majesty. It astonishes me to find the national assembly deliberating whether they shall be retained. The word sire signifies seigneur; it belonged to the feudal system, which has ceased to exist. As for the term majesty, it should only be employed in speaking of God and of the people."

The previous question was demanded, but feebly; these motions were put to the vote, and carried by a considerable majority. Yet, as this decree appeared hostile, the constitutional opinion pronounced itself against it, and censured this too excessive rigour in the application of principles. On the following day those who had demanded the previous question moved that the decisions of the day before should be abandoned. A report was circulated, at the same time, that the king would not enter the assembly if the decree were maintained; and the decree was revoked. These petty skirmishes between two powers who had to fear usurpations, assumptions, and more especially ill will between them, terminated here on this occasion, and all recollection of them was effaced by the presence of Louis XVI. in the legislative body, where he was received with the greatest respect and the most lively enthusiasm.

General pacification formed the chief topic of his speech. He pointed out to the assembly the subjects that ought to attract its attention,— finance, civil law, commerce, trade, and the consolidation of the new government; he promised to employ his influence to restore order and discipline in the army, to put the kingdom in a state of defence, and to diffuse ideas respecting the French revolution, calculated to re-establish a good understanding in Europe. He added the following words, which were received with much applause: "Gentlemen, in order that your important labours, as well as your zeal, may produce all the good which may be expected from them, a constant harmony and unchanging confidence should reign between the legislative body and the king. The enemies of our peace seek but too eagerly to disunite us, but let love of country cement our union, and let public interest make us inseparable! Thus public power may develop itself without obstacle; government will not be harassed by vain fears; the possessions and faith of each will be equally protected, and no pretext will remain for any one to live apart from a country where the laws are in vigour, and where the rights of all are respected." Unfortunately there were two classes, without the revolution, that would not enter into composition with it, and whose efforts in Europe and the interior of France were to prevent the realization of these wise and pacific words. As soon as there are displaced parties in a state, a struggle will result, and measures of hostility must be taken against them. Accordingly, the internal troubles, fomented by non-juring priests, the military assemblings of emigrants, and the preparations for the coalition, soon drove the legislative assembly further than the constitution allowed, and than it itself had proposed.

The composition of this assembly was completely popular. The prevailing ideas being in favour of the revolution, the court, nobility, and clergy had exercised no influence over the elections. There were not in this assembly, as in the preceding, partisans of absolute power and of privilege. The two fractions of the Left who had separated towards the close of the constituent assembly were again brought face to face; but no longer in the same proportion of number and strength. The popular minority of the previous assembly became the majority in this. The prohibition against electing representatives already tried, the necessity of choosing deputies from those most distinguished by their conduct and opinions, and especially the active influence of the clubs, led to this result. Opinions and parties soon became known. As in the constituent assembly there was a Right, a Centre, a Left, but of a perfectly different character.

The Right, composed of firm and absolute constitutionalists, composed the Feuillant party. Its principal speakers were Dumas, Ramond, Vaublanc, Beugnot, etc. It had some relations with the court, through Barnave, Duport, and Alexander Lameth, who were its former leaders; but whose counsels were rarely followed by Louis XVI., who gave himself up with more confidence to the advice of those immediately around him. Out of doors, it supported itself on the club of the Feuillants and upon the bourgeoisie. The national guard, the army, the directory of the department, and in general all the constituted authorities, were favourable to it. But this party, which no longer prevailed in the assembly, soon lost a post quite as essential, that of the municipality, which was occupied by its adversaries of the Left.

These formed the party called Girondist, and which in the revolution only formed an intermediate party between the middle class and the multitude. It had then no subversive project; but it was disposed to defend the revolution in every way, and in this differed from the constitutionalists who would only defend it with the law. At its head were the brilliant orators of the Gironde, [Footnote: The name of the river Garonne, after its confluence with the Dordogne.] who gave their name to the party, Vergniaud, Guadet, Gensonné, and the Provençal Isnard, who had a style of still more impassioned eloquence than theirs. Its chief leader was Brissot, who, a member of the corporation of Paris during the last session, had subsequently become a member of the assembly. The opinions of Brissot, who advocated a complete reform; his great activity of mind, which he developed at once in the journal the Patriote, in the tribune of the assembly, and at the club of the Jacobins; his exact and extensive knowledge of the position of foreign powers, gave him great ascendancy at the moment of a struggle between parties, and of a war with Europe. Condorcet possessed influence of another description; he owed this to his profound ideas, to his superior reason, which almost procured him the place of Sieyès in this second revolutionary generation. Pétion, of a calm and determined character, was the active man of this party. His tranquil brow, his fluent elocution, his acquaintance with the people, soon procured for him the municipal magistracy, which Bailly had discharged for the middle class.

The Left had in the assembly the nucleus of a party more extreme than itself, and the members of which, such as Chabot, Bazire, Merlin, were to the Girondists what Pétion, Buzot, Robespierre, had been to the Left of the constituent. This was the commencement of the democratic faction which, without, served as auxiliary to the Gironde, and which managed the clubs and the multitude. Robespierre in the society of the Jacobins, where he established his sway after leaving the assembly; Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and Fabre-d'Eglantine at the Cordeliers, where they had founded a club of innovators more extreme than the Jacobins, composed of men of the bourgeoisie; the brewer Santerre in the faubourgs, where the popular power lay; were the true chiefs of this faction, which depended on one whole class, and aspired at founding its own régime.

The Centre of the legislative assembly was sincerely attached to the new order of things. It had almost the same opinions, the same inclination for moderation as the Centre of the constituent assembly; but its power was very different: it was no longer at the head of a class established, and by the aid of which it could master all the extreme parties. Public dangers, making the want of exalted opinions and parties from without again felt, completely annulled the Centre. It was soon won over to the strongest side, the fate of all moderate parties, and the Left swayed it.

The situation of the assembly was very difficult. Its predecessor had left it parties which it evidently could not pacify. From the beginning of the session it was obliged to turn its attention to these, and that in opposing them. Emigration was making an alarming progress: the king's two brothers, the prince de Condé and the duke de Bourbon, had protested against Louis XVI. accepting the constitutional act, that is, against the only means of accommodation; they had said that the king could not alienate the rights of the ancient monarchy; and their protest, circulating throughout France, had produced a great effect on their partisans. Officers quitted the armies, the nobility their châteaux, whole companies deserted to enlist on the frontiers. Distaffs were sent to those who wavered; and those who did not emigrate were threatened with the loss of the position when the nobility should return victorious. In the Austrian Low Countries and the bordering electorates, there was formed what was called La France extérieure. The counterrevolution was openly preparing at Brussels, Worms, and Coblentz, under the protection and even with the assistance of foreign courts. The ambassadors of the emigrants were received, while those of the French government were dismissed, ill received, or even thrown into prison, as in the case of M. Duveryer. French merchants and travellers suspected of patriotism and attachment to the revolution were scouted throughout Europe. Several powers had declared themselves without disguise: of this number were Sweden, Russia, and Spain; the latter at that time being governed by the marquis Florida- Blanca, a man entirely devoted to the emigrant party. At the same time, Prussia kept its army prepared for war: the lines of the Spanish and Sardinian troops increased on our Alpine and Pyrenean frontiers, and Gustavus was assembling a Swedish army.

The dissentient ecclesiastics left nothing undone which might produce a diversion in favour of the emigrants at home. "Priests, and especially bishops," says the marquis de Ferrières, "employed all the resources of fanaticism to excite the people, in town and country, against the civil constitution of the clergy." Bishops ordered the priests no longer to perform divine service in the same church with the constitutional priests, for fear the people might confound the two. "Independently," he adds, "of circular letters written to the curés, instructions intended for the people were circulated through the country. They said that the sacraments could not be effectually administered by the constitutional priests, whom they called Intruders, and that every one attending their ministrations became by their presence guilty of a mortal sin; that those who were married by Intruders, were not married; that they brought a curse upon themselves and upon their children; that no one should have communication with them, or with those separated from the church; that the municipal officers who installed them, like them became apostates; that the moment of their installation all bell-ringers and sextons ought to resign their situations…. These fanatical addresses produced the effect which the bishops expected. Religious disturbances broke out on all sides."

Insurrection more especially broke out in Calvados, Gevaudan, and La Vendée. These districts were ill-disposed towards the revolution, because they contained few of the middle and intelligent classes, and because the populace, up to that time, had been kept in a state of dependence on the nobility and clergy. The Girondists, taking alarm, wished to adopt rigorous measures against emigration and the dissentient priests, who attacked the new order of things. Brissot proposed putting a stop to emigration, by giving up the mild system hitherto observed towards it. He divided the emigrants into three classes:—1st. The principal leaders, and at their head the brothers of the king. 2ndly. Public functionaries who forsook their posts and country, and sought to entice their colleagues. 3rdly. Private individuals, who, to preserve life, or from an aversion to the revolution, or from other motives, left their native land, without taking arms against it. He required that severe laws should be put in force against the first two classes; but thought it would be good policy to be indulgent towards the last. With respect to non-juring ecclesiastics and agitators, some of the Girondists proposed to confine themselves to a stricter surveillance; others thought there was only one safe line of conduct to be pursued towards them: that the spirit of sedition could only be quelled by banishing them from the country. "All attempts at conciliation," said the impetuous Isnard, "will henceforth be in vain. What, I ask, has been the consequence of these reiterated pardons? The daring of your foes has increased with your indulgence; they will only cease to injure you when deprived of the means of doing so. They must be conquerors or conquered. On this point all must agree; the man who will not see this great truth is, in my opinion, politically blind."

The constitutionalists were opposed to all these measures; they did not deny the danger, but they considered such laws arbitrary. They said, before everything it was necessary to respect the constitution, and from that time to confine themselves to precautionary measures; that it was sufficient to keep on the defensive against the emigrants; and to wait, in order to punish the dissentient priests, till they discovered actual conspiracies on their part. They recommended that the law should not be violated even towards enemies, for fear that once engaging in such a course, it should be impossible to arrest that course, and so the revolution be lost, like the ancient régime, through its injustice. But the assembly, which deemed the safety of the state more important than the strict observance of the law, which saw danger in hesitation, and which, moreover, was influenced by passions which lead to expeditious measures, was not stopped by these considerations. With common consent it again, on the 30th of October, passed a decree relative to the eldest brother of the king, Louis-Stanislaus-Xavier. This prince was required, in the terms of the constitution, to return to France in two months, or at the expiration of that period he would be considered to have forfeited his rights as regent. But agreement ceased as to the decrees against emigrants and priests. On the 9th of November the assembly resolved, that the French gathered together beyond the frontiers were suspected of conspiracy against their country; that if they remained assembled on the 1st of January, 1792, they would be treated as conspirators, be punishable by death, and that after condemnation to death for contumacy, the proceeds of their estates were to be confiscated to the nation, always without prejudice to the rights of their wives, children, and lawful creditors. On the 29th of the same month it passed a similar decree respecting the dissentient priests. They were obliged to take the civic oath, under pain of being deprived of their pensions and suspected of revolt against the law. If they still refused they were to be closely watched; and if any religious disturbances took place in their parishes, they were to be taken to the chief town of the department, and if found to have taken any part in exciting disobedience, they were liable to imprisonment.

The king sanctioned the first decree respecting his brother; he put his veto on the other two. A short time before he had disavowed emigration by public measures, and he had written to the emigrant princes recalling them to the kingdom. He invited them to return in the name of the tranquillity of France, and of the attachment and obedience they owed to him as their brother and their king. "I shall," said he, in concluding the letter, "always be grateful to you for saving me the necessity of acting in opposition to you, through the invariable resolution I have made to maintain what I have announced." These wise invitations had led to no result: but Louis XVI., while he condemned the conduct of the emigrants, would not give his consent to the measures taken against them. In refusing his sanction he was supported by the friends of the constitution and the directory of the department. This support was not without use to him, at a time when, in the eyes of the people, he appeared to be an accomplice of emigration, when he provoked the dissatisfaction of the Girondists, and separated himself from the assembly. He should have united closely with it, since he invoked the constitution against the emigrants in his letters, and against the revolutionist, by the exercise of his prerogative. His position could only become strong by sincerely falling in with the first revolution, and making his own cause one with that of the bourgeoisie.

But the court was not so resigned; it still expected better times, and was thus prevented from pursuing an invariable line of conduct, and induced to seek grounds for hope in every quarter. Now and then disposed to favour the intervention of foreign powers, it continued to correspond with Europe; it intrigued with its ministers against the popular party, and made use of the Feuillants against the Girondists, though with much distrust. At this period its chief resource was in the petty schemes of Bertrand de Moleville, who directed the council; who had established a French club, the members of which he paid; who purchased the applause of the tribunes of the assembly, hoping by this imitation of the revolution to conquer the true revolution, his object being to deceive parties, and annul the effects of the constitution by observing it literally.

By this line of conduct the court had even the imprudence to weaken the constitutionalists, whom it ought to have reinforced; at their expense it favoured the election of Pétion to the mayoralty. Through the disinterestedness with which the preceding assembly had been seized, all who had held popular posts under it successively gave them up. On the 18th of October, Lafayette resigned the command of the national guard, and Bailly had just retired from the mayoralty. The constitutional party proposed that Lafayette should replace him in this first post of the state, which, by permitting or restraining insurrections, delivered Paris into the power of him who occupied it. Till then it had been in the hands of the constitutionalists, who, by this means, had repressed the rising of the Champ de Mars. They had lost the direction of the assembly, the command of the national guard; they now lost the corporation. The court gave to Pétion, the Girondist candidate, all the votes at its disposal. "M. de Lafayette," observed the queen to Bertrand de Moleville, "only wishes to be mayor of Paris in order to become mayor of the palace. Pétion is a jacobin, a republican, but he is a fool, incapable of ever leading a party." On the 4th of November, Pétion was elected mayor by a majority of 6708 votes in a total of 10,632.

The Girondists, in whose favour this nomination became decisive, did not content themselves with the acquisition of the mayoralty. France could not remain long in this dangerous and provisional state. The decrees which, justly or otherwise, were to provide for the defence of the revolution, and which had been rejected by the king, were not replaced by any government measure; the ministry manifested either unwillingness or sheer indifference. The Girondists, accordingly, accused Delessart, the minister for foreign affairs, of compromising the honour and safety of the nation by the tone of his negotiations with foreign powers, by his procrastination, and want of skill. They also warmly attacked Duportail, the war minister, and Bertrand de Moleville, minister of the marine, for neglecting to put the coasts and frontiers in a state of defence. The conduct of the Electors of Trèves, Mayence, and the bishop of Spires, who favoured the military preparations of the emigrants, more especially excited the national indignation. The diplomatic committee proposed a declaration to the king, that the nation would view with satisfaction a requisition by him to the neighbouring princes to disperse the military gatherings within three weeks, and his assembling the forces necessary to make them respect international law. By this important measure, they also wished to make Louis XVI. enter into a solemn engagement, and signify to the diet of Ratisbon, as well as to the other courts of Europe, the firm intentions of France.

Isnard ascended the tribune to support this proposition. "Let us," said he, "in this crisis, rise to the full elevation of our mission; let us speak to the ministers, to the king, to all Europe, with the firmness that becomes us. Let us tell our ministers, that hitherto the nation is not well satisfied with the conduct of any of them; that henceforth they will have no choice but between public gratitude and the vengeance of the laws; and that by the word responsibility we understand death. Let us tell the king that it is his interest to defend the constitution; that he only reigns by the people and for the people; that the nation is his sovereign, and that he is subject to the law. Let us tell Europe, that if the French people once draw the sword, they will throw away the scabbard, and will not raise it again till it may be crowned with the laurels of victory; that if cabinets engage kings in a war against the people, we will engage the people in a mortal warfare against kings. Let us tell them, that all the fights the people shall fight at the order of despots"—here he was interrupted by loud applause—"Do not applaud," he cried—"do not applaud; respect my enthusiasm; it is that of liberty! Let us say to Europe, that all the fights which the people shall fight at the command of despots, resemble the blows that two friends, excited by a perfidious instigator, inflict on each other in darkness. When light arrives, they throw down their arms, embrace, and chastise their deceiver. So will it be if, when foreign armies are contending with ours, the light of philosophy shine upon them. The nations will embrace in the presence of dethroned tyrants— of the earth consoled, of Heaven satisfied."

The assembly unanimously, and with transport, passed the proposed measure, and, on the 29th of November, sent a message to the king. Vaublanc was the leader of the deputation. "Sire," said he to Louis XVI., "the national assembly had scarcely glanced at the state of the nation ere it saw that the troubles which still agitate it arise from the criminal preparations of French emigrants. Their audacity is encouraged by German princes, who trample under foot the treaties between them and France, and affect to forget that they are indebted to this empire for the treaty of Westphalia, which secured their rights and their safety. These hostile preparations, these threats of invasion, will require armaments absorbing immense sums, which the nation would joyfully pay over to its creditors. It is for you, sire, to make them desist; it is for you to address to foreign powers the language befitting the king of the French. Tell them, that wherever preparations are permitted to be made against France, there France recognises only foes; that we will religiously observe our oath to make no conquests; that we offer them the good neighbourship, the inviolable friendship of a free and powerful people; that we will respect their laws, their customs, and their constitutions; but that we will have our own respected! Tell them, that if princes of Germany continue to favour preparations directed against the French, the French will carry into their territories, not indeed fire and sword, but liberty. It is for them to calculate the consequences of this awakening of nations."

Louis XVI. replied, that he would give the fullest consideration to the message of the assembly; and in a few days he came in person to announce his resolutions on the subject. They were conformable with the general wish. The king said, amidst vehement applause, that he would cause it to be declared to the elector of Trèves and the other electors, that, unless all gatherings and hostile preparations on the part of the French emigrants in their states ceased before the 15th of January, he would consider them as enemies. He added, that he would write to the emperor to engage him, as chief of the empire, to interpose his authority for the purpose of averting the calamities which the lengthened resistance of a few members of the Germanic body would occasion. "If these declarations are not heeded, then, gentlemen," said he, "it will only remain for me to propose war—war, which a people who have solemnly renounced conquest, never declares without necessity, but which a free and generous nation will undertake and carry on when its honour and safety require it."

The steps taken by the king with the princes of the empire were supported by military preparations. On the 6th of December a new minister of war replaced Duportail; Narbonne, taken from the Feuillants, young, active, ambitious of distinguishing himself by the triumph of his party and the defence of the revolution, repaired immediately to the frontiers. A hundred and fifty thousand men were placed in requisition; for this object the assembly voted an extraordinary supply of twenty millions of francs; three armies were formed under the command of Rochambeau, Luckner, and Lafayette; finally, a decree was passed impeaching Monsieur, the count d'Artois, and the prince de Condé as conspirators against the general safety of the state and of the constitution. Their property was sequestrated, and the period previously fixed on for Monsieur's return to the kingdom having expired, he was deprived of his claim to the regency.

The elector of Trèves engaged to disperse the gatherings, and not to allow them in future. It was, however, but the shadow of a dispersion. Austria ordered marshal Bender to defend the elector if he were attacked, and ratified the conclusions of the diet of Ratisbon, which required the restoration of the princes' possessions; refused to sanction any pecuniary indemnity for the loss of their rights, and only left France the alternative of restoring feudalism in Alsace, or war. These two measures of the cabinet of Vienna were by no means pacific. Its troops advanced towards the frontiers of France, and gave further proof that it would not be safe to trust to its neutrality. It had fifty thousand men in the Netherlands; six thousand posted in Breisgau; and thirty thousand men on their way from Bohemia. This powerful army of observation might at any moment be converted into an army of attack.

The assembly felt that it was urgently necessary to bring the emperor to a decision. It looked on the electors as merely his agents, and on the emigrants as his instruments; for the prince von Kaunitz recognised as legitimate "the league of sovereigns united for the safety and honour of crowns." The Girondists, therefore, wished to anticipate this dangerous adversary, in order not to give him time for more mature preparations. They required from him, before the 10th of February, a definite and precise explanation of his real intentions with regard to France. They at the same time proceeded against those ministers on whom they could not rely in the event of war. The incapacity of Delessart, and the intrigues of Moleville especially, gave room for attack; Narbonne was alone spared. They were aided by the divisions of the council, which was partly aristocratic in Bertrand de Moleville, Delessart, etc., and partly constitutional, in Narbonne, and Cahier de Gerville, minister of the interior. Men so opposed in character and intentions could scarcely be expected to agree; Bertrand de Moleville had warm contests with Narbonne, who wished his colleagues to adopt a frank, decided line of conduct, and to make the assembly the fulcrum of the throne. Narbonne succumbed in this struggle, and his dismissal involved the disorganization of the ministry. The Girondists threw the blame upon Bertrand de Moleville and Delessart; the former had the address to exonerate himself; but the latter was brought before the high court of Orleans.

The king, intimidated by the assaults of the assembly upon the members of his council, and more especially by the impeachment of Delessart, had no resource but to select his new ministers from amongst the victorious party. An alliance with the actual rulers of the revolution could alone save liberty and the throne, by restoring concord between the assembly, the supreme authority, and the municipality; and if this union had been maintained, the Girondists would have effected with the court that which, after the rupture itself, they considered they could only effect without it. The members of the new ministry were:—minister of the marine, Lacoste; of finance, Clavière; of justice, Duranton; of war, de Grave, soon afterwards replaced by Servan; of foreign affairs, Dumouriez; of the interior, Roland. The two latter were the most important and most remarkable men in the cabinet.

Dumouriez was forty-seven years of age when the revolution began; he had lived till then immersed in intrigue, and he retained his old habits too closely at an epoch when he should have employed small means only to aid great ones, instead of supplying their place. The first part of his political life was spent in seeking those by whom he might rise: the second, those by whom he might maintain his position. A courtier up to 1789, a constitutionalist under the first assembly, a Girondist under the second, a Jacobin under the republic, he was eminently a man of circumstances. But he had all the resources of great men; an enterprising character, indefatigable activity, a ready, sure, and extensive perception, impetuosity of action, and an extraordinary confidence of success; he was, moreover, open, easy, witty, daring; adapted alike for arms and for factions, full of expedients, wonderfully ready, and, in difficult positions, versed in the art of stooping to conquer. It is true that his great qualities were weakened by defects; he was rash, flighty, full of inconsistency of thought and action, owing to his continual thirst for movement and machination. But his great defect was the total absence of a political conviction. In times of revolution, nothing can be done for liberty or power by him who is not decidedly of one party or another, and when he is ambitious, unless he see further than the immediate objects of that party, and have a stronger will than his colleagues. This it was made Cromwell; this it was made Buonaparte; while Dumouriez, the employed of all parties, thought he could get the better of them all by intriguing. He wanted the passion of his time: that which completes a man, and alone enables him to sway.

Roland was the opposite of Dumouriez; his was a character which Liberty found ready formed, as if moulded by herself. Roland had simple manners, austere morals, tried opinions; enthusiastically attached to liberty, he was capable of disinterestedly devoting to her cause his whole life, or of perishing for her, without ostentation and without regret. A man worthy of being born in a republic, but out of place in a revolution, and ill adapted for the agitation and struggle of parties; his talents were not superior, his temper somewhat uncompliant; he was unskilled in the knowledge and management of men; and though laborious, well informed, and active, he would have produced little effect but for his wife. All he wanted she had for him; force, ability, elevation, foresight. Madame Roland was the soul of the Gironde; it was at her house that those brilliant and courageous men assembled to discuss the necessities and dangers of their country; it was she who stimulated to action those whom she saw were qualified for action, and who encouraged to the tribune those whom she knew to be eloquent.

The court named this ministry, which was appointed during the month of March, le Ministère Sans-Culotte. The first time Roland appeared at the château with strings in his shoes and a round hat, contrary to etiquette, the master of the ceremonies refused to admit him. Obliged, however, to give way, he said, despairingly, to Dumouriez, pointing to Roland: "Ah, sir—no buckles in his shoes." "Ah, sir, all is lost," replied Dumouriez, with an air of the most sympathising gravity. Such were the trifles which still occupied the attention of the court. The first step of the new ministry was war. The position of France was becoming more and more dangerous; everything was to be feared from the enmity of Europe. Leopold was dead, and this event was calculated to accelerate the decision of the cabinet of Vienna. His young successor, Francis II., was likely to be less pacific or less prudent than he. Moreover, Austria was assembling its troops, forming camps, and appointing generals; it had violated the territory of Bâle, and placed a garrison in Porentruy, to secure for itself the entry of the department of Doubs. There could be no doubt as to its projects. The gatherings at Coblenz had recommenced to a greater extent than before; the cabinet of Vienna had only temporarily dispersed the emigrants assembled in the Belgian provinces, in order to prevent the invasion of that country, at a time when it was not yet ready to repel invasion; it had, however, merely sought to save appearances, and had allowed a staff of general officers, in full uniform, and with the white cockade, to remain at Brussels. Finally, the reply of the prince von Kaunitz to the required explanations was by no means satisfactory. He even refused to negotiate directly, and the baron von Cobenzl was commissioned to reply, that Austria would not depart from the required conditions already set forth. The re-establishment of the monarchy on the basis of the royal sitting of the 23rd of June; the restitution of its property to the clergy; of the territory of Alsace, with all their rights, to the German princes; of Avignon and the Venaissin to the pope; such was the ultimatum of Austria. All accord was now impossible; peace could no longer be maintained. France was threatened with the fate which Holland had just experienced, and perhaps with that of Poland. The sole question now was whether to wait for or to initiate war, whether to profit by the enthusiasm of the people or to allow that enthusiasm to cool. The true author of war is not he who declares it, but he who renders it necessary.

On the 20th of April, Louis XVI. went to the assembly, attended by all his ministers. "I come, gentlemen," said he, "to the national assembly for one of the most important objects that can occupy the representatives of the nation. My minister for foreign affairs will read to you the report drawn up in our council, as to our political situation." Dumouriez then rose. He set forth the grounds of complaint that France had against the house of Austria; the object of the conferences of Mantua, Reichenbach and Pilnitz; the coalition it had formed against the French revolution; its armaments becoming more and more considerable; the open protection it afforded to bodies of emigrants; the imperious tone and the undisguised procrastination of its negotiations, lastly, the intolerable conditions of its ultimatum; and, after a long series of considerations, founded on the hostile conduct of the king of Hungary and Bohemia (Francis II. was not yet elected emperor); on the urgent circumstances of the nation; on its formally declared resolution to endure no insult, no encroachment on its rights; on the honour and good faith of Louis XVI., the depositary of the dignity and safety of France; he demanded war against Austria. Louis XVI. then said, in a voice slightly tremulous: "You have heard, gentlemen, the result of my negotiations with the court of Vienna. The conclusions of the report are based upon the unanimous opinion of my council; I have myself adopted them. They are conformable with the wishes often expressed to me by the national assembly, and with the sentiments frequently testified by bodies of citizens in different parts of the kingdom; all prefer war, to witnessing the continuance of insult to the French people, and danger threatening the national existence. It was my duty first to try every means of maintaining peace. Having failed in these efforts, I now come, according to the terms of the constitution, to propose to the national assembly war against the king of Hungary and Bohemia." The king's address was received with some applause, but the solemnity of the circumstances, and the grandeur of the decision, filled every bosom with silent and concentrated emotion. As soon as the king had withdrawn, the assembly voted an extraordinary sitting for the evening. In that sitting war was almost unanimously decided upon. Thus was undertaken, against the chief of the confederate powers, that war which was protracted throughout a quarter of a century, which victoriously established the revolution, and which changed the whole face of Europe.

All France received the announcement with joy. War gave a new movement to the people already so much excited. Districts, municipalities, popular societies, wrote addresses; men were enrolled, voluntary gifts offered, pikes forged, and the nation seemed to rise up to await Europe, or to attack it. But enthusiasm, which ensures victory in the end, does not at first supply the place of organization. Accordingly, at the opening of the campaign, the regular troops were all that could be relied upon until the new levies were trained. This was the state of the forces. The vast frontier, from Dunkirk to Huninguen, was divided into three great military districts. On the left, from Dunkirk to Philippeville, the army of the north, of about forty thousand foot, and eight thousand horse, was under the orders of marshal de Rochambeau. Lafayette commanded the army of the centre, composed of forty-five thousand foot, and seven thousand horse, and occupying the district between Philippeville and the lines of Weissemberg. Lastly, the army of the Rhine, consisting of thirty-five thousand foot, and eight thousand horse, extending from the lines of Weissemberg to Bâle, was under the command of marshal Luckner. The frontier of the Alps and Pyrenees was confided to general Montesquiou, whose army was inconsiderable; but this part of France was not as yet in danger.

The marshal de Rochambeau was of opinion that it would be prudent to remain on the defensive, and simply to guard the frontiers. Dumouriez, on the contrary, wished to take the initiative in action, as they had done in declaring war, so as to profit by the advantage of being first prepared. He was very enterprising, and as, although minister of foreign affairs, he directed the military operations, his plan was adopted. It consisted of a rapid invasion of Belgium. This province had, in 1790, essayed to throw off the Austrian yoke, but, after a brief victory, was subdued by superior force. Dumouriez imagined that the Brabant patriots would favour the attack of the French, as a means of freedom for themselves. With this view, he combined a triple invasion. The two generals, Theobald Dillon, and Biron, who commanded in Flanders under Rochambeau, received orders to advance, the one with four thousand men from Lille upon Tournai—the other, with ten thousand, from Valenciennes upon Mons. At the same time, Lafayette, with a part of his army, quitted Metz, and advanced by forced marches upon Namur, by Stenai, Sedan, Mézières, and Givet. But this plan implied in the soldiers a discipline which they had not of course as yet acquired, and on the part of the chiefs a concert very difficult to obtain; besides, the invading columns were not strong enough for such an enterprise. Theobald Dillon had scarcely passed the frontier, when, on meeting the first enemy on the 28th of April, a panic terror seized upon the troops. The cry of sauve qui peut ran through the ranks, and the general was carried off, and massacred by his troops. Much the same thing took place, under the same circumstances, in the corps of Biron, who was obliged to retreat in disorder to his previous position. The sudden and concurrent flight of these two columns must be attributed either to fear of the enemy, on the part of troops who had never before stood fire, or to a distrust of their leaders, or to traitors who sounded the alarm of treachery.

Lafayette, on arriving at Bouvines, after travelling fifty leagues of bad roads in two or three days, learnt the disasters of Valenciennes and Lille; he at once saw that the object of the invasion had failed; and he justly thought that the best course would be to effect a retreat. Rochambeau complained of the precipitate and incongruous nature of the measures which had been in the most absolute manner prescribed to him. As he did not choose to remain a passive machine, obliged to fill, at the will of the ministers, a post which he himself ought to have the full direction of, he resigned. From that moment the French army resumed the defensive. The frontier was divided into two general commands only, the one intrusted to Lafayette, extending from the sea to Longwy, and the other, from the Moselle to the Jura, being confided to Luckner. Lafayette placed his left under the command of Arthur Dillon, and with his right reached to Luckner, who had Biron as his lieutenant on the Rhine. In this position they awaited the allies.

Meantime, the first checks increased the rupture between the Feuillants and the Girondists. The generals ascribed them to the plans of Dumouriez, the ministry attributed them to the manner in which its plans had been executed by the generals, who, having been appointed by Narbonne, were of the constitutional party. The Jacobins, on the other hand, accused the anti-revolutionists of having occasioned the flight by the cry of sauve qui peut! Their joy, which they did not conceal, the declared hope of soon seeing the confederates in Paris, the emigrants returned, and the ancient regime restored, confirmed these suspicions. It was thought that the court, which had increased the household troops from eighteen hundred to six thousand men, and these carefully selected anti-revolutionists, acted in concert with the coalition. The public denounced, under the name of comité Autrichien, a secret committee, the very existence of which could not be proved, and mistrust was at its height.

The assembly at once took decided measures. It had entered upon the career of war, and it was thenceforth condemned to regulate its conduct far more with reference to the public safety than with regard to the mere justice of the case. It resolved upon sitting permanently; it discharged the household troops; on account of the increase of religious disturbances, it passed a decree exiling refractory priests, so that it might not have at the same time to combat a coalition and to appease revolts. To repair the late defeats, and to have an army of reserve near the capital, it voted on the 8th of June, and on the motion of the minister for war, Servan, the formation of a camp outside Paris of twenty thousand men drawn from the provinces. It also sought to excite the public mind by revolutionary fêtes, and began to enroll the multitude and arm them with pikes, conceiving that no assistance could be superfluous in such a moment of peril.

All these measures were not carried without opposition from the constitutionalists. They opposed the establishment of the camp of twenty thousand men, which they regarded as the army of a party directed against the national guard and the throne. The staff of the former protested, and the recomposition of this body was immediately effected in accordance with the views of the dominant party. Companies armed with pikes were introduced into the new national guard. The constitutionalists were still more dissatisfied with this measure, which introduced a lower class into their ranks, and which seemed to them to aim at superseding the bourgeoisie by the populace. Finally, they openly condemned the banishment of the priests, which in their opinion was nothing less than proscription.

Louis XVI. had for some time past manifested a coolness towards his ministers, who on their part had been more exacting with him. They urged him to admit about him priests who had taken the oath, in order to set an example in favour of the constitutional religion, and to remove pretexts for religious agitation; he steadily refused this, determined as he was to make no further religious concession. These last decrees had put an end to his concord with the Gironde; for several days he did not mention the subject, much less make known his intentions respecting it. It was on this occasion that Roland addressed to him his celebrated letter on his constitutional duties, and entreated him to calm the public mind, and to establish his authority, by becoming frankly the king of the revolution. This letter still more highly irritated Louis XVI., already disposed to break with the Girondists. He was supported in this by Dumouriez, who, forsaking his party, had formed with Duranton and Lacoste, a division in the ministry against Roland, Servan, and Clavière. But, able as well as ambitious, Dumouriez advised Louis, while dismissing the ministers of whom he had to complain, to sanction their decrees, in order to make himself popular. He described that against the priests as a precaution in their favour, exile probably removing them from a proscription still more fatal; he undertook to prevent any revolutionary consequences from the camp of twenty thousand men, by marching off each battalion to the army immediately upon its arrival at the camp. On these conditions, Dumouriez took upon himself the post of minister for war, and sustained the attacks of his own party. The king dismissed his ministers on the 13th of June, rejected the decrees on the 29th, and Dumouriez set out for the army, after having rendered himself an object of suspicion. The assembly declared that Roland, Servan, and Clavière carried with them the regrets of the nation.

The king selected his new ministers from among the Feuillants. Scipio Chambonnas was appointed minister of foreign affairs; Terrier de Monceil, of the interior; Beaulieu, of finance; Lajarre, of war; Lacoste and Duranton remained provisionally ministers of justice and of the marine. All these men were without reputation or credit, and their party itself was approaching the term of its existence. The constitutional situation, during which it was to sway, was changing more and more decidedly into a revolutionary situation. How could a legal and moderate party maintain itself between two extreme and belligerent parties, one of which was advancing from without to destroy the revolution, while the other was resolved to defend it at any cost? The Feuillants became superfluous in such a conjuncture. The king, perceiving their weakness, now seemed to place his reliance upon Europe alone, and sent Mallet-Dupan on a secret mission to the coalition.

Meantime, all those who had been outstripped by the popular tide, and who belonged to the first period of the revolution, united to second this slight retrograde movement. The monarchists, at whose head were Lally- Tollendal and Malouet, two of the principal members of the Mounier and Necker party; Feuillants, directed by the old triumvirate, Duport, Lameth, and Barnave; lastly, Lafayette, who had immense reputation as a constitutionalist, tried to put down the clubs, and to re-establish legal order and the power of the king. The Jacobins made great exertions at this period; their influence was becoming enormous; they were at the head of the party of the populace. To oppose them, to check them, the old party of the bourgeoisie was required; but this was disorganised, and its influence grew daily weaker and weaker. In order to revive its courage and strength, Lafayette, on the 16th of June, addressed from the camp at Maubeuge a letter to the assembly, in which he denounced the Jacobin faction, required the cessation of the clubs, the independence and confirmation of the constitutional throne, and urged the assembly in his own name, in that of his army, in that of all the friends of liberty, only to adopt such measures for the public welfare as were sanctioned by law. This letter gave rise to warm debates between the Right and Left in the assembly. Though dictated only by pure and disinterested motives, it appeared, coming as it did from a young general at the head of his army, a proceeding à la Cromwell, and from that moment Lafayette's reputation, hitherto respected by his opponents, became the object of attack. In fact, considering it merely in a political point of view, this step was imprudent. The Gironde, driven from the ministry, stopped in its measures for the public good, needed no further goading; and, on the other hand, it was quite undesirable that Lafayette, even for the benefit of his party, should use his influence.

The Gironde wished, for its own safety and that of the nation, to recover power, without, however, departing from constitutional means. Its object was not, as at a later period, to dethrone the king, but to bring him back amongst them. For this purpose it had recourse to the imperious petitions of the multitude. Since the declaration of war, petitioners had appeared in arms at the bar of the national assembly, had offered their services in defence of the country, and had obtained permission to march armed through the house. This concession was blameable, neutralizing all the laws against military gatherings; but both parties found themselves in an extraordinary position, and each employed illegal means; the court having recourse to Europe, and the Gironde to the people. The latter was in a state of great agitation. The leaders of the Faubourgs, among whom were the deputy Chabot, Santerre, Legendre, a butcher, Gonchon, the marquis de Saint Hurugue, prepared them, during several days, for a revolutionary outbreak, similar to the one which failed at the Champ de Mars. The 20th of June was approaching, the anniversary of the oath of the Tennis-court. Under the pretext of celebrating this memorable day by a civic fête, and of planting a May-pole in honour of liberty, an assemblage of about eight thousand men left the Faubourgs Saint Antoine and Saint Marceau, on the 20th of June, and took their way to the assembly.

Roederer, the recorder, brought the tidings to the assembly, but in the meantime the mob had reached the doors of the hall. Their leaders asked permission to present a petition, and to defile before the assembly. A violent debate arose between the Right, who were unwilling to admit the armed petitioners, and the Left, who, on the ground of custom, wished to receive them, Vergniaud declared that the assembly would violate every principle by admitting armed bands among them; but, considering actual circumstances, he also declared that it was impossible to deny a request in the present case, that had been granted in so many others. It was difficult not to yield to the desires of an enthusiastic and vast multitude, when seconded by a majority of the representatives. The crowd already thronged the passages, when the assembly decided that the petitioners should be admitted to the bar. The deputation was introduced. The spokesman expressed himself in threatening language. He said that the people were astir; that they were ready to make use of great means—the means comprised in the declaration of rights, resistance of oppression; that the dissentient members of the assembly, if there were any, would purge the world of liberty, and would repair to Coblentz; then returning to the true design of this insurrectional petition, he added: "The executive power is not in union with you; we require no other proof of it than the dismissal of the patriot ministers. It is thus, then, that the happiness of a free nation shall depend on the caprice of a king! But should this king have any other will than that of the law? The people will have it so, and the life of the people is as valuable as that of crowned despots. That life is the genealogical tree of the nation, and the feeble reed must bend before this sturdy oak! We complain, gentlemen, of the inactivity of our armies; we require of you to penetrate into the cause of this; if it spring from the executive power, let that power be destroyed!"

The assembly answered the petitioners that it would take their request into consideration; it then urged them to respect the law and legal authorities, and allowed them to defile before it. This procession, amounting to thirty thousand persons, comprising women, children, national guards, and men armed with pikes, among whom waved revolutionary banners and symbols, sang, as they traversed the hall, the famous chorus, Ca ira, and cried: "Vive la nation!" "Vivent les sans-culottes!" "A bas le veto!" It was led by Santerre and the marquis de Saint Hurugue. On leaving the assembly, it proceeded to the château, headed by the petitioners.

The outer doors were opened at the king's command; the multitude rushed into the interior. They ascended to the apartments, and while forcing the doors with hatchets, the king ordered them to be opened, and appeared before them, accompanied by a few persons. The mob stopped a moment before him; but those who were outside, not being awed by the presence of the king, continued to advance. Louis XVI. was prudently placed in the recess of a window. He never displayed more courage than on this deplorable day. Surrounded by national guards, who formed a barrier against the mob, seated on a chair placed on a table, that he might breathe more freely and be seen by the people, he preserved a calm and firm demeanour. In reply to the cries that arose on all sides for the sanction of the decrees, he said: "This is neither the mode nor the moment to obtain it of me." Having the courage to refuse the essential object of the meeting, he thought he ought not to reject a symbol, meaningless for him, but in the eyes of the people, that of liberty; he placed on his head a red cap presented to him on the top of a pike. The multitude were quite satisfied with this condescension. A moment or two afterwards, they loaded him with applause, as, almost suffocated with hunger and thirst, he drank off, without hesitation, a glass of wine presented to him by a half-drunken workman. In the meantime, Vergniaud, Isnard, and a few deputies of the Gironde, had hastened thither to protect the king, to address the people, and put an end to these indecent scenes. The assembly, which had just risen from a sitting, met again in haste, terrified at this outbreak, and despatched several successive deputations to Louis XVI. by way of protection. At length, Pétion, the mayor, himself arrived; he mounted a chair, harangued the people, urged them to retire without tumult, and the people obeyed. These singular insurgents, whose only aim was to obtain decrees and ministers, retired without having exceeded their mission, but without discharging it.

The events of the 20th of June excited the friends of the constitution against its authors. The violation of the royal residence, the insults offered to Louis XVI., the illegality of a petition presented amidst the violence of the multitude, and the display of arms, were subjects of serious censure against the popular party. The latter saw itself reduced for a moment to the defensive; besides being guilty of a riot, it had undergone a complete check. The constitutionalists assumed the tone and superiority of an offended and predominant party; but this lasted only a short time, for they were not seconded by the court. The national guard offered to Louis XVI. to remain assembled round his person; the duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, who commanded at Rouen, wished to convey him to his troops, who were devoted to his cause. Lafayette proposed to take him to Compiègne, and place him at the head of his army; but Louis XVI. declined all these offers. He conceived that the agitators would be disgusted at the failure of their last attempt; and, as he hoped for deliverance from the coalition of European powers, rendered more active by the events of the 20th of June, he was unwilling to make use of the constitutionalists, because he would have been obliged to treat with them.

Lafayette, however, attempted to make a last effort in favour of legal monarchy. After having provided for the command of his army, and collected addresses protesting against the late events, he started for Paris, and on the 28th of June he unexpectedly presented himself at the bar of the assembly. He required in his name, as well as in that of his army, the punishment of the insurrectionists of the 20th of June, and the destruction of the Jacobin party. His proceeding excited various sentiments in the assembly. The Right warmly applauded it, but the Left protested against his conduct. Guadet proposed that an inquiry should be made as to his culpability in leaving his army and coming to dictate laws to the assembly. Some remains of respect prevented the latter from following Guadet's advice; and after tumultuous debates, Lafayette was admitted to the honours of the sitting, but this was all on the part of the assembly. Lafayette then turned to the national guard, that had so long been devoted to him, and hoped with its aid to close the clubs, disperse the Jacobins, restore to Louis XVI. the authority which the law gave him, and again establish the constitution. The revolutionists were astounded, and dreaded everything from the daring and activity of this adversary of the Champ de Mars. But the court, which feared the triumph of the constitutionalists, caused Lafayette's projects to fail; he had appointed a review, which it contrived to prevent by its influence over the officers of the royalist battalions. The grenadiers and chasseurs, picked companies still better disposed than the rest, were to assemble at his residence and proceed against the clubs; scarcely thirty men came. Having thus vainly attempted to rally in the cause of the constitution, and the common defence, the court and the national guard, and finding himself deserted by those he came to assist, Lafayette returned to his army, after having lost what little influence and popularity remained to him. This attempt was the last symptom of life in the constitutional party.

The assembly naturally returned to the situation of France, which had not changed. The extraordinary commission of twelve presented, through Pastoret, an unsatisfactory picture of the state and divisions of party. Jean Debry, in the name of the same commission, proposed that the assembly should secure the tranquillity of the people, now greatly disturbed, by declaring that when the crisis became imminent, the assembly would declare the country is in danger; and that it would then take measures for the public safety. The debate opened upon this important subject. Vergniaud, in a speech which deeply moved the assembly, drew a vivid picture of all the perils to which the country was at that moment exposed. He said that it was in the name of the king that the emigrants were assembled, that the sovereigns of Europe had formed a coalition, that foreign armies were marching on our frontiers, and that internal disturbances were taking place. He accused him of checking the national zeal by his refusals, and of giving France up to the coalition. He quoted the article of the constitution by which it was declared that "if the king placed himself at the head of an army and directed its force against the nation, or if he did not formally oppose such an enterprise, undertaken in his name, he should be considered as having abdicated the throne." Supposing, then, that Louis XVI. voluntarily opposed the means of defending the country, in that case, said he: "have we not a right to say to him: 'O king, who thought, no doubt, with the tyrant Lysander, that truth was of no more worth than falsehood, and that men were to be amused by oaths, as children are diverted by toys; who only feigned obedience to the laws that you might better preserve the power that enables you to defy them; and who only feigned love for the constitution that it might not precipitate you from the throne on which you felt bound to remain in order to destroy the constitution, do you expect to deceive us by hypocritical protestations? Do you think to deceive us as to our misfortunes by the art of your excuses? Was it defending us to oppose to foreign soldiers forces whose known inferiority admitted of no doubt as to their defeat? To set aside projects for strengthening the interior? Was it defending us not to check a general who was violating the constitution, while you repressed the courage of those who sought to serve it? Did the constitution leave you the choice of ministers for our happiness or our ruin? Did it place you at the head of our army for our glory or our shame? Did it give you the right of sanction, a civil list and so many prerogatives, constitutionally to lose the empire and the constitution? No! no! man! whom the generosity of the French could not affect, whom the love of despotism alone actuates, you are now nothing to the constitution you have so unworthily violated, and to the people you have so basely betrayed!'"

The only resource of the Gironde, in its present situation, was the abdication of the king; Vergniaud, it is true, as yet only expressed himself ambiguously, but all the popular party attributed to Louis XVI. projects which Vergniaud had only expressed in the form of suppositions. In a few days, Brissot expressed himself more openly. "Our peril," said he, "exceeds all that past ages have witnessed. The country is in danger, not because we are in want of troops, not because those troops want courage, or that our frontiers are badly fortified, and our resources scanty. No, it is in danger, because its force is paralysed. And who has paralysed it? A man—one man, the man whom the constitution has made its chief, and whom perfidious advisers have made its foe. You are told to fear the kings of Hungary and Prussia; I say, the chief force of these kings is at the court, and it is there that we must first conquer them. They tell you to strike the dissentient priests throughout the kingdom. I tell you to strike at the Tuileries, that is, to fell all the priests with a single blow; you are told to prosecute all factious and intriguing conspirators; they will all disappear if you once knock loud enough at the door of the cabinet of the Tuileries, for that cabinet is the point to which all these threads tend, where every scheme is plotted, and whence every impulse proceeds. The nation is the plaything of this cabinet. This is the secret of our position, this is the source of the evil, and here the remedy must be applied."

In this way the Gironde prepared the assembly for the question of deposition. But the great question concerning the danger of the country was first terminated. The three united committees declared that it was necessary to take measures for the public safety, and on the 5th July the assembly pronounced the solemn declaration: Citizens, the country is in danger! All the civil authorities immediately established themselves en surveillance permanente. All citizens able to bear arms, and having already served in the national guard, were placed in active service; every one was obliged to make known what arms and ammunition he possessed; pikes were given to those who were unable to procure guns; battalions of volunteers were enrolled on the public squares, in the midst of which banners were placed, bearing the words—"Citizens, the country is in danger!" and a camp was formed at Soissons. These measures of defence, now become indispensable, raised the revolutionary enthusiasm to the highest pitch. It was especially observable on the anniversary of the 14th of July, when the sentiments of the multitude and the federates from the departments were manifested without reserve. Pétion was the object of the people's idolatry, and had all the honours of the federation. A few days before, he had been dismissed, on account of his conduct on the 20th of June by the directory of the department and the council; but the assembly had restored him to his functions, and the only cry on the day of the federation was: "Pétion or death!" A few battalions of the national guard, such as that of the Filles-Saint-Thomas, still betrayed attachment to the court; they became the object of popular resentment and mistrust. A disturbance was excited in the Champs Élysées between the grenadiers of the Filles-Saint-Thomas and the federates of Marseilles, in which some grenadiers were wounded. Every day the crisis became more imminent; the party in favour of war could no longer endure that of the constitution. Attacks against Lafayette multiplied; he was censured in the journals, denounced in the assembly. At length hostilities began. The club of the Feuillants was closed; the grenadier and chasseur companies of the national guard which formed the force of the bourgeoisie were disbanded; the soldiers of the line, and a portion of the Swiss, were sent away from Paris, and open preparations were made for the catastrophe of the 10th of August.

The progress of the Prussians and the famous manifesto of Brunswick contributed to hasten this movement. Prussia had joined Austria and the German princes against France. This coalition, to which the court of Turin joined itself, was formidable, though it did not comprise all the powers that were to have joined it at first. The death of Gustavus, appointed at first commander of the invading army, detached Sweden; the substitution of the count d'Aranda, a prudent and moderate man, for the minister Florida- Blanca, prevented Spain from entering it; Russia and England secretly approved the attacks of the European league, without as yet co-operating with it. After the military operations already mentioned, they watched each other rather than fought. During the interval, Lafayette had inspired his army with good habits of discipline and devotedness; and Dumouriez, stationed under Luckner at the camp of Maulde, had inured the troops confided to him by petty engagements and daily successes. In this way they had formed the nucleus of a good army; a desirable thing, as they required organization and confidence to repel the approaching invasion of the coalesced powers.

The duke of Brunswick directed it. He had the chief command of the enemy's army, composed of seventy thousand Prussians, and sixty-eight thousand Austrians, Hessians, or emigrants. The plan of invasion was as follows:— The duke of Brunswick with the Prussians, was to pass the Rhine at Coblentz, ascend the left bank of the Moselle, attack the French frontier by its central and most accessible point, and advance on the capital by way of Longwy, Verdun, and Châlons. The prince von Hohenlohe on his left, was to advance in the direction of Metz and Thionville, with the Hessians and a body of emigrants; while general Clairfayt, with the Austrians and another body of emigrants, was to overthrow Lafayette, stationed before Sedan and Mézieres, cross the Meuse, and march upon Paris by Rheims and Soissons. Thus the centre and two wings were to make a concentrated advance on the capital from the Moselle, the Rhine, and the Netherlands. Other detachments stationed on the frontier of the Rhine and the extreme northern frontier, were to attack our troops on these sides and facilitate the central invasion.

On the 26th of July, when the army began to move from Coblentz, the duke of Brunswick published a manifesto in the name of the emperor and the king of Prussia. He reproached those who had usurped the reins of administration in France, with having disturbed order and overturned the legitimate government; with having used daily-renewed violence against the king and his family; with having arbitrarily suppressed the rights and possessions of the German princes in Alsace and Lorraine; and, finally, with having crowned the measure by declaring an unjust war against his majesty the emperor, and attacking his provinces in the Netherlands. He declared that the allied sovereigns were advancing to put an end to anarchy in France, to arrest the attacks made on the altar and the throne; to restore to the king the security and liberty he was deprived of, and to place him in a condition to exercise his legitimate authority. He consequently rendered the national guard and the authorities responsible for all the disorders that should arise until the arrival of the troops of the coalition. He summoned them to return to their ancient fidelity. He said that the inhabitants of towns, who dared to stand on the defensive, should instantly be punished as rebels, with the rigour of war, and their houses demolished or burned; that if the city of Paris did not restore the king to full liberty, and render him due respect, the princes of the coalition would make the members of the national assembly, of the department, of the district, the corporation, and the national guard, personally responsible with their heads, to be tried by martial-law, and without hope of pardon; and that if the château were attacked or insulted, the princes would inflict an exemplary and never-to-be-forgotten vengeance, by delivering Paris over to military execution, and total subversion. He promised, on the other hand, if the inhabitants of Paris would promptly obey the orders of the coalition, to secure for them the mediation of the allied princes with Louis XVI. for the pardon of their offences and errors.

This fiery and impolitic manifesto, which disguised neither the designs of the emigrants nor those of Europe, which treated a great nation with a truly extraordinary tone of command and contempt, which openly announced to it all the miseries of an invasion, and, moreover, vengeance and despotism, excited a national insurrection. It more than anything else hastened the fall of the throne, and prevented the success of the coalition. There was but one wish, one cry of resistance, from one end of France to the other; and whoever had not joined in it, would have been looked on as guilty of impiety towards his country and the sacred cause of its independence. The popular party, placed in the necessity of conquering, saw no other way than that of annihilating the power of the king, and in order to annihilate it, than that of dethroning him. But in this party, every one wished to attain the end in his own way: the Gironde by a decree of the assembly; the leaders of the multitude by an insurrection. Danton, Robespierre, Camille Desmoulins, Fabre-d'Eglantine, Marat, etc., were a displaced faction requiring a revolution that would raise it from the midst of the people to the assembly and the corporation. They were the true leaders of the new movement about to take place by the means of the lower class of society against the middle class, to which the Girondists belonged by their habits and position. A division arose from that day between those who only wished to suppress the court in the existing order of things, and those who wished to introduce the multitude. The latter could not fall in with the tardiness of discussion. Agitated by every revolutionary passion, they disposed themselves for an attack by force of arms, the preparations for which were made openly, and a long time beforehand.

Their enterprise had been projected and suspended several times. On the 26th of July, an insurrection was to break out; but it was badly contrived, and Pétion prevented it. When the federates from Marseilles arrived, on their way to the camp at Soissons, the faubourgs were to meet them, and then repair, unexpectedly, to the château. This insurrection also failed. Yet the arrival of the Marseillais encouraged the agitators of the capital, and conferences were held at Charenton between them and the federal leaders for the overthrow of the throne. The sections were much agitated; that of Mauconseil was the first to declare itself in a state of insurrection, and notified this to the assembly. The dethronement was discussed in the clubs, and on the 3rd of August, the mayor Pétion came to solicit it of the legislative body, in the name of the commune and of the sections. The petition was referred to the extraordinary commission of twelve. On the 8th, the accusation of Lafayette was discussed. Some remains of courage induced the majority to support him, and not without danger. He was acquitted; but all who had voted for him were hissed, pursued, and ill treated by the people at the breaking up of the sitting.

The following day the excitement was extreme. The assembly learned by the letters of a large number of deputies, that the day before on leaving the house they had been ill used, and threatened with death, for voting the acquittal of Lafayette. Vaublanc announced that a crowd had invested and searched his house in pursuit of him. Girardin exclaimed: "Discussion is impossible, without perfect liberty of opinion; I declare to my constituents that I cannot deliberate if the legislative body does not secure me liberty and safety." Vaublanc earnestly urged that the assembly should take the strongest measures to secure respect to the law. He also required that the federates, who were defended by the Girondists, should be sent without delay to Soissons. During these debates the president received a message from de Joly, minister of justice. He announced that the mischief was at its height, and the people urged to every kind of excess. He gave an account of those committed the evening before, not only against the deputies, but against many other persons. "I have," said the minister, "denounced these attacks in the criminal court; but law is powerless; and I am impelled by honour and probity to inform you, that without the promptest assistance of the legislative body, the government can no longer be responsible." In the meantime, it was announced that the section of the Quinze-vingts had declared that, if the dethronement were not pronounced that very day, at midnight they would sound the tocsin, would beat the générale and attack the château. This decision had been transmitted to the forty-eight sections, and all had approved it, except one. The assembly summoned the recorder of the department, who assured them of his good-will, but his inability; and the mayor, who replied that, at a time when the sections had resumed their sovereignty, he could only exercise over the people the influence of persuasion. The assembly broke up without adopting any measures.

The insurgents fixed the attack on the château for the morning of the 10th of August. On the 8th, the Marseillais had been transferred from their barracks in the Rue Blanche to the Cordeliers, with their arms, cannon, and standard. They had received five thousand ball cartridges, which had been distributed to them by command of the commissioner of police. The principal scene of the insurrection was the Faubourg Saint Antoine. In the evening, after a very stormy sitting, the Jacobins repaired thither in procession; the insurrection was then organized. It was decided to dissolve the department; to dismiss Pétion, in order to withdraw him from the duties of his place, and all responsibility; and, finally, to replace the general council of the present commune by an insurrectional municipality. Agitators repaired at the same time to the sections of the faubourgs and to the barracks of the federate Marseillais and Bretons.

The court had been apprised of the danger for some time, and had placed itself in a state of defence. At this juncture, it probably thought it was not only able to resist, but also entirely to re-establish itself. The interior of the château was occupied by Swiss, to the number of eight or nine hundred, by officers of the disbanded guard, and by a troop of gentlemen and royalists, who had offered their services, armed with sabres, swords, and pistols. Mandat, the general-in-chief of the national guard, had repaired to the château, with his staff, to defend it; he had given orders to the battalions most attached to the constitution to take arms. The ministers were also with the king; the recorder of the department had gone thither in the evening at the command of the king, who had also sent for Pétion, to ascertain from him the state of Paris, and obtain an authorization to repel force by force.

At midnight, the tocsin sounded; the générale was beaten. The insurgents assembled, and fell into their ranks; the members of the sections broke up the municipality, and named a provisional council of the commune, which proceeded to the Hôtel de Ville to direct the insurrection. The battalions of the national guard, on their side, took the route to the château, and were stationed in the court, or at the principal posts, with the mounted gendarmerie; artillerymen occupied the avenues of the Tuileries, with their pieces; while the Swiss and volunteers guarded the apartments. The defence was in the best condition.

Some deputies, meanwhile, aroused by the tocsin, had hurried to the hall of the legislative body, and had opened the sitting under the presidentship of Vergniaud. Hearing that Pétion was at the Tuileries, and presuming he was detained there, and wanted to be released, they sent for him to the bar of the assembly, to give an account of the state of Paris. On receiving this order, he left the château; he appeared before the assembly, where a deputation again inquired for him, also supposing him to be a prisoner at the Tuileries. With this deputation he returned to the Hôtel de Ville, where he was placed under a guard of three hundred men by the new commune. The latter, unwilling to allow any other authority on this day of disorder than the insurrectional authorities, early in the morning sent for the commandant Mandat, to know what arrangements were made at the château. Mandat hesitated to obey; yet, as he did not know that the municipality had been changed, and as his duty required him to obey its orders, on a second call which he received from the commune, he proceeded to the Hôtel de Ville. On perceiving new faces as he entered, he turned pale. He was accused of authorizing the troops to fire on the people. He became agitated, and was ordered to the Abbaye, and the mob murdered him as he was leaving, on the steps of the Hôtel de Ville. The commune immediately conferred the command of the national guard on Santerre.

The court was thus deprived of its most determined and influential defender. The presence of Mandat, and the order he had received to employ force in case of need, were necessary to induce the national guard to fight. The sight of the nobles and royalists had lessened its zeal. Mandat himself, previous to his departure, had urged the queen in vain to dismiss this troop, which the constitutionalists considered as a troop of aristocrats.

About four in the morning the queen summoned Roederer, the recorder of the department, who had passed the night at the Tuileries, and inquired what was to be done under these circumstances? Roederer replied, that he thought it necessary that the king and the royal family should proceed to the national assembly. "You propose," said Dubouchage, "to take the king to his foes." Roederer replied, that, two days before, four hundred members of that assembly out of six hundred, had pronounced in favour of Lafayette; and that he had only proposed this plan as the least dangerous. The queen then said, in a very positive tone: "Sir, we have forces here: it is at length time to know who is to prevail, the king and the constitution, or faction?" "In that case, madam," rejoined Roederer, "let us see what arrangements have been made for resistance." Laschenaye, who commanded in the absence of Mandat, was sent for. He was asked if he had taken measures to prevent the crowd from arriving at the château? If he had guarded the Carrousel? He replied in the affirmative; and, addressing the queen, he said, in a tone of anger: "I must not allow you to remain in ignorance, madam, that the apartments are filled with people of all kinds, who very much impede the service, and prevent free access to the king, a circumstance which creates dissatisfaction among the national guard." "This is out of season," replied the queen; "I will answer for those who are here; they will advance first or last, in the ranks, as you please; they are ready for all that is necessary; they are sure men." They contented themselves with sending the two ministers, Joly and Champion to the assembly to apprise it of the danger, and ask for its assistance and for commissioners. [Footnote: Chronique des Cinquante Jours, par P. L. Roederer, a writer of the most scrupulous accuracy.]

Division already existed between the defenders of the château, when Louis XVI. passed them in review at five o'clock in the morning. He first visited the interior posts, and found them animated by the best intentions. He was accompanied by some members of his family, and appeared extremely sad. "I will not," he said, "separate my cause from that of good citizens; we will save ourselves or perish together." He then descended into the yard, accompanied by some general officers. As soon as he arrived, they beat to arms. The cry of "Vive le roi!" was heard, and was repeated by the national guard; but the artillerymen, and the battalion of the Croix Rouge replied by the cry of "Vive la nation!" At the same instant, new battalions, armed with guns and pikes, defiled before the king, and took their places upon the terrace of the Seine, crying; "Vive la nation!" "Vive Pétion!" The king continued the review, not, however, without feeling saddened by this omen. He was received with the strongest evidences of devotion by the battalions of the Filles-Saint-Thomas, and Petits-Pères, who occupied the terrace, extending the length of the château. As he crossed the garden to visit the ports of the Pont Tournant, the pike battalions pursued him with the cry of: "Down with the veto!" "Down with the traitor!" and as he returned, they quitted their position, placed themselves near the Pont Royal, and turned their cannon against the château. Two other battalions stationed in the courts imitated them, and established themselves on the Place du Carrousel in an attitude of attack. On re-entering the château, the king was pale and dejected; and the queen said, "All is lost! This kind of review has done more harm than good."

While all this was passing at the Tuileries, the insurgents were advancing in several columns; they had passed the night in assembling, and becoming organized. In the morning, they had forced the arsenal, and distributed the arms. The column of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, about fifteen thousand strong, and that of the Faubourg Saint Marceau, amounting to five thousand, began to march about six. The crowd increased as they advanced. Artillerymen had been placed on the Pont Neuf by the directory of the department, in order to prevent the union of the insurgents from the two sides of the river. But Manuel, the town clerk, had ordered them to be withdrawn, and the passage was accordingly free. The vanguard of the Faubourgs, composed of Marseillais and Breton federates, had already arrived by the Rue Saint Honoré, stationed themselves in battle array on the Carrousel, and turned their cannon against the château. De Joly and Champion returned from the assembly, stating that the attendance was not sufficient in number to debate; that it scarcely amounted to sixty or eighty members, and that their proposition had not been heard. Then Roederer, the recorder of the department, with the members of the department, presented himself to the crowd, observing that so great a multitude could not have access to the king, or to the national assembly, and recommending them to nominate twenty deputies, and entrust them with their requests. But they did not listen to him. He turned to the national guard, reminded them of the article of the law, which enjoined them when attacked, to repel force by force. A very small part of the national guard seemed disposed to do so; and a discharge of cannon was the only reply of the artillerymen. Roederer, seeing that the insurgents were everywhere triumphant, that they were masters of the field, and that they disposed of the multitude, and even of the troops, returned hastily to the château, at the head of the executive directory.

The king held a council with the queen and ministers. A municipal officer had just given the alarm by announcing that the columns of the insurgents were advancing upon the Tuileries. "Well, and what do they want?" asked Joly, keeper of the seals. "Abdication," replied the officer. "To be pronounced by the assembly," added the minister. "And what will follow abdication?" inquired the queen. The municipal officer bowed in silence. At this moment Roederer arrived, and increased the alarm of the court by announcing that the danger was extreme; that the insurgents would not be treated with, and that the national guard could not be depended upon. "Sire," said he, urgently, "your majesty has not five minutes to lose: your only safety is in the national assembly; it is the opinion of the department that you ought to repair thither without delay. There are not sufficient men in the court to defend the château; nor are we sure of them. At the mention of defence, the artillerymen discharged their cannon." The king replied, at first, that he had not observed many people on the Carrousel; and the queen rejoined with vivacity, that the king had forces to defend the château. But, at the renewed urgency of Roederer, the king after looking at him attentively for a few minutes, turned to the queen, and said, as he rose: "Let us go." "Monsieur Roederer," said Madame Elizabeth, addressing the recorder, "you answer for the life of the king?" "Yes, madame, with my own," he replied. "I will walk immediately before him."

Louis XVI. left his chamber with his family, ministers, and the members of the department, and announced to the persons assembled for the defence of the château that he was going to the national assembly. He placed himself between two ranks of national guards, summoned to escort him, and crossed the apartments and garden of the Tuileries. A deputation of the assembly, apprised of his approach, came to meet him: "Sire," said the president of this deputation, "the assembly, eager to provide for your safety, offers you and your family an asylum in its bosom." The procession resumed its march, and had some difficulty in crossing the terrace of the Tuileries, which was crowded with an animated mob, breathing forth threats and insults. The king and his family had great difficulty in reaching the hall of the assembly, where they took the seats reserved for the ministers. "Gentlemen," said the king, "I come here to avoid a great crime; I think I cannot be safer than with you." "Sire," replied Vergniaud, who filled the chair, "you may rely on the firmness of the national assembly. Its members have sworn to die in maintaining the rights of the people, and the constituted authorities." The king then took his seat next the president. But Chabot reminded him that the assembly could not deliberate in the presence of the king, and Louis XVI. retired with his family and ministers into the reporter's box behind the president, whence all that took place could be seen and heard.

All motives for resistance ceased with the king's departure. The means of defence had also been diminished by the departure of the national guards who escorted the king. The gendarmerie left their posts, crying "Vive la nation!" The national guard began to move in favour of the insurgents. But the foes were confronted, and, although the cause was removed, the combat nevertheless commenced. The column of the insurgents surrounded the château. The Marseillais and Bretons who occupied the first rank had just forced the Porte Royale on the Carrousel, and entered the court of the château. They were led by an old subaltern, called Westermann, a friend of Danton, and a very daring man. He ranged his force in battle array, and approaching the artillerymen, induced them to join the Marseillais with their pieces. The Swiss filled the windows of the château, and stood motionless. The two bodies confronted each other for some time without making an attack. A few of the assailants advanced amicably, and the Swiss threw some cartridges from the windows in token of peace. They penetrated as far as the vestibule, where they were met by other defenders of the château. A barrier separated them. Here the combat began, but it is unknown on which side it commenced. The Swiss discharged a murderous fire on the assailants, who were dispersed. The Place du Carrousel was cleared. But the Marseillais and Bretons soon returned with renewed force; the Swiss were fired on by the cannon, and surrounded. They kept their posts until they received orders from the king to cease firing. The exasperated mob did not cease, however, to pursue them, and gave itself up to the most sanguinary reprisals. It now became a massacre rather than a combat; and the crowd perpetrated in the château all the excesses of victory.

All this time the assembly was in the greatest alarm. The first cannonade filled them with consternation. As the firing became more frequent, the agitation increased. At one moment, the members considered themselves lost. An officer entering the hall, hastily exclaimed: "To your places, legislators; we are forced!" A few rose to go out. "No, no," cried others, "this is our post." The spectators in the gallery exclaimed instantly, "Vive l'assemblée nationale!" and the assembly replied, "Vive la nation!" Shouts of victory were then heard without, and the fate of monarchy was decided.

The assembly instantly made a proclamation to restore tranquillity, and implore the people to respect justice, their magistrates, the rights of man, liberty, and equality. But the multitude and their chiefs had all the power in their hands, and were determined to use it. The new municipality came to assert its authority. It was preceded by three banners, inscribed with the words, "Patrie, liberté, egalité." Its address was imperious, and concluded by demanding the deposition of the king, and a national convention. Deputations followed, and all expressed the same desire, or rather issued the same command.

The assembly felt itself compelled to yield; it would not, however, take upon itself the deposition of the king. Vergniaud ascended the tribune, in the name of the commission of twelve, and said: "I am about to propose to you a very rigorous measure; I appeal to the affliction of your hearts to judge how necessary it is to adopt it immediately." This measure consisted of the convocation of a national assembly, the dismissal of the ministers, and the suspension of the king. The assembly adopted it unanimously. The Girondist ministers were recalled; the celebrated decrees were carried into execution, about four thousand non-juring priests were exiled, and commissioners were despatched to the armies to make sure of them. Louis XVI., to whom the assembly had at first assigned the Luxembourg as a residence, was transferred as a prisoner to the Temple, by the all- powerful commune, under the pretext that it could not otherwise be answerable for the safety of his person. Finally, the 23rd of September was appointed for opening the extraordinary assembly, destined to decide the fate of royalty. But royalty had already fallen on the 10th of August, that day marked by the insurrection of the multitude against the middle classes and the constitutional throne, as the 14th of July had seen the insurrection of the middle class against the privileged class and the absolute power of the crown. On the 10th of August began the dictatorial and arbitrary epoch of the revolution. Circumstances becoming more and more difficult to encounter, a vast warfare arose, requiring still greater energy than ever, and that energy irregular, because popular, rendered the domination of the lower class restless, cruel, and oppressive. The nature of the question was then entirely changed; it was no longer a matter of liberty, but of public safety; and the conventional period, from the end of the constitution of 1791, to the time when the constitution of the year III. established the directory, was only a long campaign of the revolution against parties and against Europe. It was scarcely possible it should be otherwise. "The revolutionary movement once established," says M. de Maîstre, in his Considerations sur la France. [Footnote: Lausanne, 1796.] "France and the monarchy could only be saved by Jacobinism. Our grandchildren, who will care little for our sufferings, and will dance on our graves, will laugh at our present ignorance; they will easily console themselves for the excesses we have witnessed, and which will have preserved the integrity of the finest of kingdoms."

The departments adhered to the events of the 10th of August. The army, which shortly afterwards came under the influence of the revolution, was at yet of constitutional royalist principles; but as the troops were subordinate to parties, they would easily submit to the dominant opinion. The generals, second in rank, such as Dumouriez, Custines, Biron, Kellermann, and Labourdonnaie, were disposed to adopt the last changes. They had not yet declared for any particular party, looking to the revolution as a means of advancement. It was not the same with the two generals in chief. Luckner floated undecided between the insurrection of the 10th of August, which he termed, "a little accident that had happened to Paris and his friend, Lafayette." The latter, head of the constitutional party, firmly adhering to his oaths, wished still to defend the overturned throne, and a constitution which no longer existed. He commanded about thirty thousand men, who were devoted to his person and his cause. His head-quarters were near Sedan. In his project of resistance in favour of the constitution, he concerted with the municipality of that town, and the directory of the department of Ardennes, to establish a civil centre round which all the departments might rally. The three commissioners, Kersaint, Antonelle, and Péraldy, sent by the legislature to his army, were arrested and imprisoned in the tower of Sedan. The reason assigned for this measure was, that the assembly having been intimidated, the members who had accepted such a mission were necessarily but the leaders or instruments of the faction which had subjugated the national assembly and the king. The troops and the civil authorities then renewed their oath to the constitution, and Lafayette endeavoured to enlarge the circle of the insurrection of the army against the popular insurrection.

General Lafayette at that moment thought, possibly, too much on the past, on the law, and the common oath, and not enough on the really extraordinary position in which France then was. He only saw the dearest hopes of the friends of liberty destroyed, the usurpation of the state by the multitude, and the anarchical reign of the Jacobins; he did not perceive the fatality of a situation which rendered the triumph of the latest comer in the revolution indispensable. It was scarcely possible that the bourgeoisie, which had been strong enough to overthrow the old system and the privileged classes, but which had reposed after that victory, could resist the emigrants and all Europe. For this a new shock, a new faith were necessary; there was need of a numerous, ardent, inexhaustible class, as enthusiastic for the 10th of August, as the bourgeoisie had been for the 14th of July. Lafayette could not associate with this party; he had combated it, under the constituent assembly, at the Champ de Mars, before and after the 20th of June. He could not continue to play his former part, nor defend a cause just in itself, but condemned by events, without compromising his country, and the results of a revolution to which he was sincerely attached. His resistance, if continued, would have given rise to a civil war between the people and the army, at a time when it was not certain that the combination of all parties would suffice against a foreign war.

It was the 19th of August, and the army of invasion having left Coblentz on the 30th of July, was ascending the Moselle, and advancing on that frontier. In consideration of the common danger, the troops were disposed to resume their obedience to the assembly; Luckner, who at first approved of Lafayette's views, retracted, weeping and swearing, before the municipality of Metz; and Lafayette himself saw the necessity of yielding to a more powerful destiny. He left his army, taking upon himself all the responsibility of the whole insurrection. He was accompanied by Bureau-de- Pusy, Latour-Maubourg, Alexander Lameth, and some officers of his staff. He proceeded through the enemy's posts towards Holland, intending to go to the United States, his adopted country. But he was discovered and arrested with his companions. In violation of the rights of nations, he was treated as a prisoner of war, and confined first in the dungeons of Magdeburg, and then by the Austrians at Olmütz. The English parliament itself took steps in his favour; but it was not until the treaty of Campo-Formio that Bonaparte released him from prison. During four years of the hardest captivity, subject to every description of privation, kept in ignorance of the state of his country and of liberty, with no prospect before him but that of perpetual and harsh imprisonment, he displayed the most heroic courage. He might have obtained his liberty by making certain retractations, but he preferred remaining buried in his dungeon to abandoning in the least degree the sacred cause he had embraced.

There have been in our day few lives more pure than Lafayette's; few characters more beautiful; few men whose popularity has been more justly won and longer maintained. After defending liberty in America at the side of Washington, he desired to establish it in the same manner in France; but this noble part was impossible in our revolution. When a people in the pursuit of liberty has no internal dissension, and no foes but foreigners, it may find a deliverer; may produce, in Switzerland a William Tell, in the Netherlands a prince of Orange, in America a Washington; but when it pursues it against its own countrymen and foreigners, at once amidst factions and battles, it can only produce a Cromwell or a Bonaparte, who become the dictators of revolutions when the struggle subsides and parties are exhausted. Lafayette, an actor in the first epoch of the crisis, enthusiastically declared for its results. He became the general of the middle class, at the head of the national guard under the constituent assembly, in the army under the legislative assembly. He had risen by it, and he would end with it. It may be said of him, that if he committed some faults of position, he had ever but one object, liberty, and that he employed but one means, the law. The manner in which, when yet quite young, he devoted himself to the deliverance of the two worlds, his glorious conduct and his invariable firmness, will transmit his name with honour to posterity, with whom a man cannot have two reputations, as in the time of party, but his own alone.

The authors of the events of the 10th of August became more and more divided, having no common views as to the results which should arise from that revolution. The more daring party, which had got hold of the commune or municipality, wished by means of that commune to rule Paris; by means of Paris, the national assembly; and by means of the assembly, France. After having effected the transference of Louis XVI. to the Temple, it threw down all the statues of the kings, and destroyed all the emblems of the monarchy. The department exercised a right of superintendence over the municipality; to be completely independent, it abrogated this right. The law required certain conditions to constitute a citizen; it decreed the cessation of these, in order that the multitude might be introduced into the government of the state. At the same time, it demanded the establishment of an extraordinary tribunal to try the conspirators of the 10th of August. As the assembly did not prove sufficiently docile, and endeavoured by proclamations to recall the people to more just and moderate sentiments, it received threatening messages from the Hôtel de Ville. "As a citizen," said a member of the commune, "as a magistrate of the people, I come to announce to you that this evening, at midnight, the tocsin will sound, the drum beat to arms. The people are weary of not being avenged; tremble lest they administer justice themselves." "If, before two or three hours pass, the foreman of the jury be not named," said another, "and if the jury be not itself in a condition to act, great calamities will befall Paris." To avert the threatened outbreaks, the assembly was obliged to appoint an extraordinary criminal tribunal. This tribunal condemned a few persons, but the commune having conceived the most terrible projects, did not consider it sufficiently expeditious.

At the head of the commune were Marat, Panis, Sergent, Duplain, Lenfent, Lefort, Jourdeuil, Collot d'Herbois, Billaud-Varennes, Tallien, etc.; but the chief leader of the party at that time was Danton. He, more than any other person, had distinguished himself on the 10th of August. During the whole of that night he had rushed about from the sections to the barracks of the Marseillais and Bretons, and from these to the Faubourgs. A member of the revolutionary commune, he had directed its operations, and had afterwards been appointed minister of justice.

Danton was a gigantic revolutionist; he deemed no means censurable so they were useful, and, according to him, men could do whatever they dared attempt. Danton, who has been termed the Mirabeau of the populace bore a physical resemblance to that tribune of the higher classes; he had irregular features, a powerful voice, impetuous gesticulation, a daring eloquence, a lordly brow. Their vices, too, were the same; only Mirabeau's were those of a patrician, Danton's those of a democrat; that which there was of daring in the conceptions of Mirabeau, was to be found in Danton, but in another way, because, in the revolution, he belonged to another class and another epoch. Ardent, overwhelmed with debts and wants, of dissolute habits, given up now to his passions, now to his party, he was formidable while in the pursuit of an object, but became indifferent as soon as he had obtained it. This powerful demagogue presented a mixture of the most opposite vices and qualities. Though he had sold himself to the court, he did not seem sordid; he was one of those who, so to speak, give an air of freedom even to baseness. He was an absolute exterminator, without being personally ferocious; inexorable towards masses, humane, generous even towards individuals. [Footnote: At the time the commune was arranging the massacre of the 2nd September, he saved all who applied to him; he, of his own accord, released from prison Duport, Barnave, and Ch. Lameth, his personal antagonists.] Revolution, in his opinion, was a game at which the conqueror, if he required it, won the life of the conquered. The welfare of his party was, in his eyes, superior to law and even to humanity; this will explain his endeavours after the 10th of August, and his return to moderation when he considered the republic established.

At this period the Prussians, advancing on the plan of invasion described above, passed the frontier, after a march of twenty days. The army of Sedan was without a leader, and incapable of resisting a force so superior in numbers and so much better organised. On the 20th of August, Longwy was invested by the Prussians; on the 21st it was bombarded, and on the 24th it capitulated. On the 30th the hostile army arrived before Verdun, invested it, and began to bombard it. Verdun taken, the road to the capital was open. The capture of Longwy, and the approach of so great a danger, threw Paris into the utmost agitation and alarm. The executive council, composed of the ministers, was summoned by the committee of general defence, to deliberate on the best measures to be adopted in this perilous conjuncture. Some proposed to wait for the enemy under the walls of the capital, others to retire to Saumur. "You are not ignorant," said Danton, when his turn to speak arrived, "that France is Paris; if you abandon the capital to the foreigner, you surrender yourselves, and you surrender France. It is in Paris that we must defend ourselves by every possible means. I cannot sanction any plan tending to remove you from it. The second project does not appear to me any better. It is impossible to think of fighting under the walls of the capital. The 10th of August has divided France into two parties, the one attached to royalty, the other desiring a republic. The latter, the decided minority of which in the state cannot be concealed, is the only one on which you can rely to fight; the other will refuse to march; it will excite Paris in favour of the foreigner, while your defenders, placed between two fires, will perish in repelling him. Should they fall, which seems to me beyond a doubt, your ruin and that of France are certain; if, contrary to all expectation, they return victorious over the coalition, this victory will still be a defeat for you; for it will have cost you thousands of brave men, while the royalists, more numerous than you, will have lost nothing of their strength and influence. It is my opinion, that to disconcert their measures and stop the enemy, we must make the royalists fear." The committee, at once understanding the meaning of these words, were thrown into a state of consternation. "Yes, I tell you," resumed Danton, "we must make them fear." As the committee rejected this proposition by a silence full of alarm, Danton concerted with the commune. His aim was to put down its enemies by terror, to involve the multitude more and more by making them his accomplices, and to leave the revolution no other refuge than victory.

Domiciliary visits were made with great and gloomy ceremony; a large number of persons whose condition, opinions, or conduct rendered them objects of suspicion, were thrown into prison. These unfortunate persons were taken especially from the two dissentient classes, the nobles and the clergy, who were charged with conspiracy under the legislative assembly. All citizens capable of bearing arms were enrolled in the Champ de Mars, and departed on the first of September for the frontier. The générale was beat, the tocsin sounded, cannon were fired, and Danton, presenting himself to the assembly to report the measures taken to save the country, exclaimed: "The cannon you hear are no alarm cannon, but the signal for attacking the enemy! To conquer them, to prostrate them, what is necessary? Daring, again daring, and still again and ever daring!" Intelligence of the taking of Verdun arrived during the night of the 1st of September. The commune availed themselves of this moment, when Paris, filled with terror, thought it saw the enemy already at its gates, to execute their fearful projects. The cannon were again fired, the tocsin sounded, the barriers were closed, and the massacre began.

During three days, the prisoners confined in the Carmes, the Abbaye, the Conciergérie, the Force, etc., were slaughtered by a band of about three hundred assassins, directed and paid by the commune. This body, with a calm fanaticism, prostituting to murder the sacred forms of justice, now judges, now executioners, seemed rather to be practising a calling than to be exercising vengeance; they massacred without question, without remorse, with the conviction of fanatics and the obedience of executioners. If some peculiar circumstances seemed to move them, and to recall them to sentiments of humanity, to justice, and to mercy, they yielded to the impression for a moment, and then began anew. In this way a few persons were saved; but they were very few. The assembly desired to prevent the massacres, but were unable to do so. The ministry were as incapable as the assembly; the terrible commune alone could order and do everything; Pétion, the mayor, had been cashiered; the soldiers placed in charge of the prisoners feared to resist the murderers, and allowed them to take their own course; the crowd seemed indifferent, or accomplices; the rest of the citizens dared not even betray their consternation. We might be astonished that so great a crime should, with such deliberation, have been conceived, executed, and endured, did we not know what the fanaticism of party will do, and what fear will suffer. But the chastisement of this enormous crime fell at last upon the heads of its authors. The majority of them perished in the storm they had themselves raised, and by the same violent means that they had themselves employed. Men of party seldom escape the fate they have made others undergo.

The executive council, directed, as to military operations by general Servan, advanced the newly-levied battalions towards the frontier. As a man of judgment, he was desirous of placing a general at the threatened point; but the choice was difficult. Among the generals who had declared in favour of the late political events, Kellermann seemed only adapted for a subordinate command, and the authorities had therefore merely placed him in the room of the vacillative and incompetent Luckner. Custine was but little skilled in his art; he was fit for any dashing coup de main, but not for the conduct of a great army intrusted with the destiny of France. The same military inferiority was chargeable upon Biron, Labourdonnaie, and the rest, who were therefore left at their old stations, with the corps under their command. Dumouriez alone remained, against whom the Girondists still retained some rancour, and in whom they, moreover, suspected the ambitious views, the tastes, and character of an adventurer, while they rendered justice to his superior talents. However, as he was the only general equal to so important a position, the executive council gave him the command of the army of the Moselle.

Dumouriez repaired in all haste from the camp at Maulde to that of Sedan. He assembled a council of war, in which the general opinion was in favour of retiring towards Châlons or Rheims, and covering themselves with the Marne. Far from adopting this dangerous plan, which would have discouraged the troops, given up Lorraine, Trois Evêchés, and a part of Champagne, and thrown open the road to Paris, Dumouriez conceived a project full of genius. He saw that it was necessary, by a daring march, to advance on the forest of Argonne, where he might infallibly stop the enemy. This forest had four issues; that of the Chêne-Populeux on the left; those of the Croix-au-Bois and of Grandpré in the centre, and that of Les Islettes on the right, which opened or closed the passage into France. The Prussians were only six leagues from the forest, and Dumouriez had twelve to pass over, and his design of occupying it to conceal, if he hoped for success. He executed his project skilfully and boldly. General Dillon, advancing on the Islettes, took possession of them with seven thousand men; he himself reached Grandpré, and there established a camp of thirteen thousand men. The Croix-au-Bois, and the Chêne-Populeux were in like manner occupied and defended by some troops. It was here that he wrote to the minister of war, Servan:—"Verdun is taken; I await the Prussians. The camps of Grandpré and Les Islettes are the Thermopylae of France; but I shall be more fortunate than Leonidas."

In this position, Dumouriez might have stopped the enemy, and himself have securely awaited the succours which were on their road to him from every part of France. The various battalions of volunteers repaired to the camps in the interior, whence they were despatched to his army, as soon as they were at all in a state of discipline. Beurnonville, who was on the Flemish frontier, had received orders to advance with nine thousand men, and to be at Rhétel, on Dumouriez's left, by the 13th of September. Duval was also on the 7th to march with seven thousand men to the Chêne-Populeux; and Kellermann was advancing from Metz, on his right, with a reinforcement of twenty-two thousand men. Time, therefore, was all that was necessary.

The duke of Brunswick, after taking Verdun, passed the Meuse in three columns. General Clairfait was operating on his right, and prince Hohenlohe on his left. Renouncing all hope of driving Dumouriez from his position by attacking him in front, he tried to turn him. Dumouriez had been so imprudent as to place nearly his whole force at Grandpré and the Islettes, and to put only a small corps at Chêne-Populeux and Coix-au- Bois—posts, it is true, of minor importance. The Prussians, accordingly, seized upon these, and were on the point of turning him in his camp at Grandpré, and of thus compelling him to lay down his arms. After this grand blunder, which neutralized his first manoeuvres, he did not despair of his situation. He broke up his camp secretly during the night of the 14th September, passed the Aisne, the approach to which might have been closed to him, made a retreat as able as his advance on the Argonne had been, and concentrated his forces in the camp at Sainte-Menehould. He had already delayed the advance of the Prussians at Argonne. The season, as it advanced, became bad. He had now only to maintain his post till the arrival of Kellermann and Beurnonville, and the success of the campaign would be certain. The troops had become disciplined and inured, and the army amounted to about seventy thousand men, after the arrival of Beurnonville and Kellermann, which took place on the 17th.

The Prussian army had followed the movements of Dumouriez. On the 20th, it attacked Kellermann at Valmy, in order to cut off from the French army the retreat on Châlons. There was a brisk cannonade on both sides. The Prussians advanced in columns towards the heights of Valmy, to carry them. Kellermann also formed his infantry in columns, enjoined them not to fire, but to await the approach of the enemy, and charge them with the bayonet. He gave this command, with the cry of Vive la nation! and this cry, repeated from one end of the line to the other, startled the Prussians still more than the firm attitude of our troops. The duke of Brunswick made his somewhat shaken battalions fall back; the firing continued till the evening; the enemy attempted a fresh attack, but were repulsed. The day was ours; and the success of Valmy, almost insignificant in itself, produced on our troops, and upon opinion in France, the effect of the most complete victory.

From the same epoch may be dated the discouragement and retreat of the enemy. The Prussians had entered upon this campaign on the assurance of the emigrants that it would be a mere military promenade. They were without magazines or provisions; in the midst of a perfectly open country, they encountered a resistance each day more energetic; the incessant rains had broken up the roads; the soldiers marched knee-deep in mud, and, for four days past, boiled corn had been their only food. Diseases, produced by the chalky water, want of clothing, and damp, had made great ravages in the army. The duke of Brunswick advised a retreat, contrary to the opinion of the king of Prussia and the emigrants, who wished to risk a battle, and get possession of Châlons. But as the fate of the Prussian monarchy depended on its army, and the entire ruin of that army would be the inevitable consequence of a defeat, the duke of Brunswick's opinion prevailed. Negotiations were opened, and the Prussians, abating their first demands, now only required the restoration of the king upon the constitutional throne. But the convention had just assembled; the republic had been proclaimed, and the executive council replied, "that the French republic could listen to no proposition until the Prussian troops had entirely evacuated the French territory." The Prussians, upon this, commenced their retreat on the evening of the 30th of September. It was slightly disturbed by Kellermann, whom Dumouriez sent in pursuit, while he himself proceeded to Paris to enjoy his triumph, and concert measures for the invasion of Belgium. The French troops re-entered Verdun and Longwy; and the enemy, after having crossed the Ardennes and Luxembourg, repassed the Rhine at Coblentz, towards the end of October. This campaign had been marked by general success. In Flanders, the duke of Saxe-Teschen had been compelled to raise the siege of Lille, after seven days of a bombardment, contrary, both in its duration and in its useless barbarity, to all the usages of war. On the Rhine, Custine had taken Trèves, Spires, and Mayence. In the Alps, general Montesquiou had invaded Savoy, and general Anselme the territory of Nice. Our armies, victorious in all directions, had everywhere assumed the offensive, and the revolution was saved.

If we were to present the picture of a state emerging from a great crisis, and were to say: "There were in this state an absolute government whose authority has been restricted; two privileged classes which have lost their supremacy; a vast population, already freed by the effect of civilization and intelligence, but without political rights, and who have been obliged, by reason of repeated refusals, to gain these for themselves"; if we were to add: "The government, after opposing this revolution, submitted to it, but the privileged classes constantly opposed it,"—the following would probably be concluded from these data:

"The government will be full of regret, the people will exhibit distrust, and the privileged classes will attack the new order of things, each in its own way. The nobility, unable to do so at home, from its weakness there, will emigrate, in order to excite foreign powers, who will make preparations for attack; the clergy, who would lose its means of action abroad, will remain at home, where it will seek out foes to the revolution. The people, threatened from without, in danger at home, irritated against the emigrants who seek to arm foreign powers, against foreign powers about to attack its independence, against the clergy, who excite the country to insurrection, will treat as enemies clergy, emigrants, and foreign powers. It will require first surveillance over, then the banishment of the refractory priests; confiscation of the property of the emigrants; war against allied Europe, in order to forestall it. The first authors of the revolution will condemn such of these measures as shall violate the law; the continuators of the revolution will, on the contrary, regard them as the salvation of the country; and discord will arise between those who prefer the constitution to the state, and those who prefer the state to the constitution. The monarch, induced by his interests as king, his affections and his conscience, to reject such a course of policy, will pass for an accomplice of the counter-revolution, because he will appear to protect it. The revolutionists will then seek to gain over the king by intimidation, and failing in this, will overthrow his authority."

Such was the history of the legislative assembly. Internal disturbances led to the decree against the priests; external menaces to that against the emigrants; the coalition of foreign powers to war against Europe; the first defeat of our armies, to the formation of the camp of twenty thousand. The refusal of Louis XVI. to adopt most of these decrees, rendered him an object of suspicion to the Girondists; the dissensions between the latter and the constitutionalists, who desired some of them to be legislators, as in time of peace, others, enemies, as in time of war, disunited the partisans of the revolution. With the Girondists the question of liberty was involved in victory, and victory in the decrees. The 20th of June was an attempt to force their acceptance; but having failed in its effect, they deemed that either the crown or the revolution must be renounced, and they brought on the 10th of August. Thus, but for emigration which induced the war, but for the schism which induced the disturbances, the king would probably have agreed to the constitution, and the revolutionists would not have dreamed of the republic.

THE NATIONAL CONVENTION

CHAPTER VI

FROM THE 20TH OF SEPTEMBER, 1792, TO THE 21ST OF JANUARY, 1793

The convention was constituted on the 20th of September, 1792, and commenced its deliberations on the 21st. In its first sitting it abolished royalty, and proclaimed the republic. On the 22nd, it appropriated the revolution to itself, by declaring it would not date from year IV. of Liberty; but from year I. of the French Republic. After these first measures, voted by acclamation, with a sort of rivalry in democracy and enthusiasm in the two parties, which had become divided at the close of the legislative assembly, the convention, instead of commencing its labours, gave itself up to intestine quarrels. The Girondists and the Mountain, before they established the new revolution, desired to know to which of them it was to belong, and the enormous dangers of their position did not divert them from this contest. They had more than ever to fear the efforts of Europe. Austria, Prussia, and some of the German princes having attacked France before the 10th of August, there was every reason to believe that the other sovereigns of Europe would declare against it after the fall of the monarchy, the imprisonment of the king, and the massacres of September. Within, the enemies of the revolution had increased. To the partisans of the ancient regime, of the aristocracy and clergy, were now to be added the friends of constitutional monarchy, with whom the fate of Louis XVI. was an object of earnest solicitude, and those who imagined liberty impossible without order, or under the empire of the multitude. Amidst so many obstacles and adversaries, at a moment when their strictest union was requisite, the Gironde and the Mountain attacked each other with the fiercest animosity. It is true that these two parties were wholly incompatible, and that their respective leaders could not combine, so strong and varied were the grounds of separation in their rivalry for power, and in their designs.

Events had compelled the Girondists to become republicans. It would have suited them far better to have remained constitutionalists. The integrity of their purposes, their distaste for the multitude, their aversion for violent measures, and especially the prudence which counselled them only to attempt that which seemed possible—every circumstance made this imperative upon them; but they had not been left free to remain what they at first were. They had followed the bias which led them onward to the republic, and they had gradually habituated themselves to this form of government. They now desired it ardently and sincerely, but they felt how difficult it would be to establish and consolidate it. They deemed it a great and noble thing; but they felt that the men for it were wanting. The multitude had neither the intelligence nor the virtue proper for this kind of government. The revolution effected by the constituent assembly was legitimate, still more because it was possible than because it was just; it had its constitution and its citizens. But a new revolution, which should call the lower classes to the conduct of the state, could not be durable. It would injuriously affect too many interests, and have but momentary defenders, the lower class being capable of sound action and conduct in a crisis, but not for a permanency. Yet, in consenting to this second revolution, it was this inferior class which must be looked to for support. The Girondists did not adopt this course, and they found themselves placed in a position altogether false; they lost the assistance of the constitutionalists without procuring that of the democrats; they had a hold upon neither extreme of society. Accordingly, they only formed a half party, which was soon overthrown, because it had no root. The Girondists, after the 10th of August, were, between the middle class and the multitude, what the monarchists, or the Mounier and Necker party, had been after the 24th of July, between the privileged classes and the bourgeoisie.

The Mountain, on the contrary, desired a republic of the people. The leaders of this party, annoyed at the credit of the Girondists, sought to overthrow and to supersede them. They were less intelligent, and less eloquent, but abler, more decided, and in no degree scrupulous as to means. The extremest democracy seemed to them the best of governments, and what they termed the people, that is, the lowest populace, was the object of their constant adulation, and most ardent solicitude. No party was more dangerous; most consistently it laboured for those who fought its battle.

Ever since the opening of the convention, the Girondists had occupied the right benches, and the Mountain party the summit of the left, whence the name by which they are designated. The Girondists were the strongest in the assembly; the elections in the departments had generally been in their favour. A great number of the deputies of the legislative assembly had been re-elected, and as at that time connexion effected much, the members who had been united with the deputation of the Gironde and the commune of Paris before the 10th of August, returned with the same opinions. Others came without any particular system or party, without enmities or attachments: these formed what was then called the Plaine or the Marais. This party, taking no interest in the struggles between the Gironde and the Mountain, voted with the side they considered the most just, so long as they were allowed to be moderate; that is to say, so long as they had no fears for themselves.

The Mountain was composed of deputies of Paris, elected under the influence of the commune of the 10th of August, and of some very decided republicans from the provinces; it, from time to time, increased its ranks with those who were rendered enthusiastic by circumstances, or who were impelled by fear. But though inferior in the convention in point of numbers, it was none the less very powerful, even at this period. It swayed Paris; the commune was devoted to it, and the commune had managed to constitute itself the supreme authority in the state. The Mountain had sought to master the departments, by endeavouring to establish an identity of views and conduct between the municipality of Paris and the provincial municipalities; they had not, however, completely succeeded in this, and the departments were for the most part favourable to their adversaries, who cultivated their good will by means of pamphlets and journals sent by the minister Roland, whose house the Mountain called a bureau d'esprit public, and whose friends they called intrigants. But besides this junction of the communes, which sooner or later would take place, they were adopted by the Jacobins. This club, the most influential as well as the most ancient and extensive, changed its views at every crisis without changing its name; it was a framework ready for every dominating power, excluding all dissentients. That at Paris was the metropolis of Jacobinism, and governed the others almost imperiously. The Mountain had made themselves masters of it; they had already driven the Girondists from it, by denunciation and disgust, and replaced the members taken from the bourgeoisie by sans-culottes. Nothing remained to the Girondists but the ministry, who, thwarted by the commune, were powerless in Paris. The Mountain, on the contrary, disposed of all the effective force of the capital, of the public mind by the Jacobins, of the sections and faubourgs by the sans-culottes, of the insurrectionists by the municipality.

The first measure of parties after having decreed the republic, was to contend with each other. The Girondists were indignant at the massacres of September, and they beheld with horror on the benches of the convention the men who had advised or ordered them. Above all others, two inspired them with antipathy and disgust; Robespierre, whom they suspected of aspiring to tyranny; and Marat, who from the commencement of the revolution had in his writings constituted himself the apostle of murder. They denounced Robespierre with more animosity than prudence; he was not yet sufficiently formidable to incur the accusation of aspiring to the dictatorship. His enemies by reproaching him with intentions then improbable, and at all events incapable of proof, themselves augmented his popularity and importance.

Robespierre, who played so terrible a part in our revolution, was beginning to take a prominent position. Hitherto, despite his efforts, he had had superiors in his own party: under the constituent assembly, its famous leaders; under the legislative, Brissot and Pétion; on the 10th of August, Danton. At these different periods he had declared himself against those whose renown or popularity offended him. Only able to distinguish himself among the celebrated personages of the first assembly by the singularity of his opinions, he had shown himself an exaggerated reformer; during the second, he became a constitutionalist, because his rivals were innovators, and he had talked in favour of peace to the Jacobins, because his rivals advocated war. From the 10th of August he essayed in that club to ruin the Girondists, and to supplant Danton, always associating the cause of his vanity with that of the multitude. This man, of ordinary talents and vain character, owed it to his inferiority to rank with the last, a great advantage in times of revolution; and his conceit drove him to aspire to the first rank, to do all to reach it, to dare all to maintain himself there.

Robespierre had the qualifications for tyranny; a soul not great, it is true, but not common; the advantage of one sole passion, the appearance of patriotism, a deserved reputation for incorruptibility, an austere life, and no aversion to the effusion of blood. He was a proof that amidst civil troubles it is not mind but conduct that leads to political fortune, and that persevering mediocrity is more powerful than wavering genius. It must also be observed that Robespierre had the support of an immense and fanatical sect, whose government he had solicited, and whose principles he had defended since the close of the constituent assembly. This sect derived its origin from the eighteenth century, certain opinions of which it represented. In politics, its symbol was the absolute sovereignty of the Contrat social of J.J. Rousseau, and for creed, it held the deism of la Profession de foi du Vicaire Savoyard; at a later period it succeeded in realizing these for a moment in the constitution of '93, and the worship of the Supreme Being. More fanaticism and system existed in the different epochs of the revolution than is generally supposed.

Whether the Girondists distinctly foresaw the dominion of Robespierre, or whether they suffered themselves to be carried away by their indignation, they accused him, with republicans, of the most serious of crimes. Paris was agitated by the spirit of faction; the Girondists wished to pass a law against those who excited disorders and violence, and at the same time to give the convention an independent force derived from the eighty-three departments. They appointed a commission to present a report on this subject. The Mountain attacked this measure as injurious to Paris; the Gironde defended it, by pointing out the project of a triumvirate formed by the deputation of Paris. "I was born in Paris," said Osselin; "I am deputy for that town. It is announced that a party is formed in the very heart of it, desiring a dictatorship, triumvirs, tribunes, etc. I declare that extreme ignorance or profound wickedness alone could have conceived such a project. Let the member of the deputation of Paris who has conceived such an idea be anathematized!" "Yes," exclaimed Rebecqui of Marseilles, "yes, there exists in this assembly a party which aspires at the dictatorship, and I will name the leader of this party; Robespierre. That is the man whom I denounce." Barbaroux supported this denunciation by his evidence; he was one of the chief authors of the 10th of August; he was the leader of the Marseillais, and he possessed immense influence in the south. He stated that about the 10th of August, the Marseillais were much courted by the two parties who divided the capital; he was brought to Robespierre's, and there he was told to ally himself to those citizens who had acquired most popularity, and that Paris expressly named to him, Robespierre, as the virtuous man who was to be dictator of France. Barbaroux was a man of action. There were some members of the Right who thought with him, that they ought to conquer their adversaries, in order to avoid being conquered by them. They wished, making use of the convention against the commune, to oppose the departments to Paris, and while they remained weak, by no means to spare enemies, to whom they would otherwise be granting time to become stronger. But the greater number dreaded a rupture, and trembled at the idea of energetic measures.

This accusation against Robespierre had no immediate consequences; but it fell back on Marat, who had recommended a dictatorship, in his journal "L'Ami du Peuple," and had extolled the massacres. When he ascended the tribune to justify himself, the assembly shuddered. "A bas! à bas!" resounded from all sides. Marat remained imperturbable. In a momentary pause, he said: "I have a great number of personal enemies in this assembly. (Tous! tous!) I beg of them to remember decorum; I exhort them to abstain from all furious clamours and indecent threats against a man who has served liberty and themselves more than they think. For once let them learn to listen." And this man delivered in the midst of the convention, astounded at his audacity and sangfroid, his views of the proscriptions and of the dictatorship. For some time he had fled from cellar to cellar to avoid public anger, and the warrants issued against him. His sanguinary journal alone appeared; in it he demanded heads, and prepared the multitude for the massacres of September. There is no folly which may not enter a man's head, and what is worse, which may not be realized for a moment. Marat was possessed by certain fixed ideas. The revolution had enemies, and, in his opinion, it could not last unless freed from them; from that moment he deemed nothing could be more simple than to exterminate them, and appoint a dictator, whose functions should be limited to proscribing; these two measures he proclaimed aloud, with a cynical cruelty, having no more regard for propriety than for the lives of men, and despising as weak minds all those who called his projects atrocious, instead of considering them profound. The revolution had actors really more sanguinary than he, but none exercised a more fatal influence over his times. He depraved the morality of parties already sufficiently corrupt; and he had the two leading ideas which the committee of public safety subsequently realized by its commissioners or its government— extermination in mass, and the dictatorship.

Marat's accusation was not attended with any results; he inspired more disgust, but less hatred than Robespierre; some regarded him as a madman; others considered these debates as the quarrels of parties, and not as an object of interest for the republic. Moreover, it seemed dangerous to attempt to purify the convention, or to dismiss one of its members, and it was a difficult step to get over, even for parties. Danton did not exonerate Marat. "I do not like him," said he; "I have had experience of his temperament; it is volcanic, crabbed and unsociable. But why seek for the language of a faction in what he writes? Has the general agitation any other cause than that of the revolutionary movement itself?" Robespierre, on his part, protested that he knew very little of Marat; that, previous to the 10th of August, he had only had one conversation with him, after which Marat, whose violent opinions he did not approve, had considered his political views so narrow, that he had stated in his journal, that he had neither the higher views nor the daring of a statesman.

But he was the object of much greater indignation because he was more dreaded. The first accusation of Rebecqui and Barbaroux had not succeeded. A short time afterwards, the Minister Roland made a report on the state of France and Paris; in it he denounced the massacres of September, the encroachments of the commune, and the proceedings of the agitators. "When," said he, "they render the wisest and most intrepid defenders of liberty odious or suspected, when principles of revolt and slaughter are boldly professed and applauded in the assemblies, and clamours arise against the convention itself, I can no longer doubt that partisans of the ancient regime, or false friends of the people, concealing their extravagance or wickedness under a mask of patriotism, have conceived the plan of an overthrow in which they hope to raise themselves on ruins and corpses, and gratify their thirst for blood, gold, and atrocity."

He cited, in proof of his report, a letter in which the vice-president of the second section of the criminal tribunal informed him, that he and the most distinguished Girondists were threatened; that, in the words of their enemies, another bleeding was wanted; and that these men would hear of no one but Robespierre.

At these words the latter hastened to the tribune to justify himself. "No one," he cried, "dare accuse me to my face!" "I dare!" exclaimed Louvet, one of the most determined men of the Gironde. "Yes, Robespierre," he continued, fixing his eye upon him; "I accuse you!" Robespierre, hitherto full of assurance, became moved. He had once before, at the Jacobins, measured his strength with this formidable adversary, whom he knew to be witty, impetuous, and uncompromising. Louvet now spoke, and in a most eloquent address spared neither acts nor names. He traced the course of Robespierre to the Jacobins, to the commune, to the electoral assembly: "calumniating the best patriots; lavishing the basest flatteries on a few hundred citizens, at first designated as the people of Paris, afterwards as the people absolutely, and then as the sovereign; repeating the eternal enumeration of his own merits, perfections, and virtues; and never failing, after he had dwelt on the strength, grandeur, and sovereignty of the people, to protest that he was the people too." He then described him concealing himself on the 10th of August, and afterwards swaying the conspirators of the commune. Then he came to the massacres of September, and exclaimed: "The revolution of the 10th of August belongs to all!" he added, pointing out a few of the members of the Mountain in the commune, "but that of the 2nd of September, that belongs to them—and to none but them! Have they not glorified themselves by it? They themselves, with brutal contempt, only designated us as the patriots of the 10th of August. With ferocious pride they called themselves the patriots of the 2nd of September! Ah, let them retain this distinction worthy of the courage peculiar to them; let them retain it as our justification, and for their lasting shame! These pretended friends of the people wish to cast on the people of Paris the horrors that stained the first week of September. They have basely slandered them. The people of Paris can fight; they cannot murder! It is true, they were assembled all the day long before the château of the Tuileries on the glorious 10th of August; it is false that they were seen before the prisons on the horrible 2nd of September. How many executioners were there within? Two hundred; probably not two hundred. And without, how many spectators could be reckoned drawn thither by truly incomprehensible curiosity? At most, twice the number. But, it is asked, why, if the people did not assist in these murders, did they not hinder them? Why? Because Pétion's tutelary authority was fettered; because Roland spoke in vain; because Danton, the minister of justice, did not speak at all,… because the presidents of the forty-eight sections waited for orders which the general in command did not give; because municipal officers, wearing their scarfs, presided at these atrocious executions. But the legislative assembly? The legislative assembly! representatives of the people, you will avenge it! The powerless state into which your predecessors were reduced is, in the midst of such crimes, the greatest for which these ruffians, whom I denounce, must be punished." Returning to Robespierre, Louvet pointed out his ambition, his efforts, his extreme ascendancy over the people, and terminated his fiery philippic by a series of facts, each one of which was preceded by this terrible form: "Robespierre, I accuse thee!"

Louvet descended from the tribune amidst applause, Robespierre mounted it to justify himself; he was pale, and was received with murmurs. Either from agitation or fear of prejudice, he asked for a week's delay. The time arrived; he appeared less like one accused than as a triumpher; he repelled with irony Louvet's reproaches, and entered into a long apology for himself. It must be admitted that the facts were vague, and it required little trouble to weaken or overturn them. Persons were placed in the gallery to applaud him; even the convention itself, who regarded this quarrel as the result of a private pique, and, as Barrère said, did not fear a man of a day, a petty leader of riots, was disposed to close these debates. Accordingly, when Robespierre observed, as he finished: "For my part, I will draw no personal conclusions; I have given up the easy advantage of replying to the calumnies of my adversaries by more formidable denunciations; I wished to suppress the offensive part of my justification. I renounce the just vengeance I have a right to pursue against my calumniators; I ask for no other than the return of peace and triumph of liberty!" he was applauded, and the convention passed to the order of the day. Louvet in vain sought to reply; he was not allowed. Barbaroux as vainly presented himself as accuser and Lanjuinais opposed the motion for the order without obtaining the renewal of the discussion. The Girondists themselves supported it: they committed one fault in commencing the accusation, and another in not continuing it. The Mountain carried the day, since they were not conquered, and Robespierre was brought nearer the assumption of the part he had been so far removed from. In times of revolution, men very soon become what they are supposed to be, and the Mountain adopted him for their leader because the Girondists pursued him as such.

But what was much more important than personal attacks, were the discussions respecting the means of government, and the management of authorities and parties. The Girondists struck, not only against individuals but against the commune. Not one of their measures succeeded; they were badly proposed or badly sustained. They should have supported the government, replaced the municipality, maintained their post among the Jacobins and swayed them, gained over the multitude, or prevented its acting; and they did nothing of all this. One among them, Buzot, proposed giving the convention a guard of three thousand men, taken from the departments. This measure, which would at least have made the assembly independent, was not supported with sufficient vigour to be adopted. Thus the Girondists attacked the Mountain without weakening them, the commune without subduing it, the Faubourgs without suppressing them. They irritated Paris by invoking the aid of the departments, without procuring it; thus acting in opposition to the most common rules of prudence, for it is always safer to do a thing than to threaten to do it.

Their adversaries skilfully turned this circumstance to advantage. They secretly circulated a report which could not but compromise the Girondists; it was, that they wished to remove the republic to the south, and give up the rest of the empire. Then commenced that reproach of federalism, which afterwards became so fatal. The Girondists disdained it because they did not see the consequences; but it necessarily gained credit in proportion as they became weak and their enemies became daring. What had given rise to the report was the project of defending themselves behind the Loire, and removing the government to the south, if the north should be invaded and Paris taken, and the predilection they manifested for the provinces, and their indignation against the agitators of the capital. Nothing is more easy than to change the appearance of a measure by changing the period in which the measure was adopted, and discover in the disapprobation expressed at the irregular acts of a city, an intention to form the other cities of the state into a league against it. Accordingly, the Girondists were pointed out to the multitude as federalists. While they denounced the commune, and accused Robespierre and Marat, the Mountain decreed the unity and indivisibility of the republic. This was a way of attacking them and bringing them into suspicion, although they themselves adhered so eagerly to these propositions that they seemed to regret not having made them.

But a circumstance, apparently unconnected with the disputes of these two parties, served still better the cause of the Mountain. Already emboldened by the unsuccessful attempts which had been directed against them, they only waited for an opportunity to become assailants in their turn. The convention was fatigued by these long discussions. Those members who were not interested in them, and even those of the two parties who were not in the first rank, felt the need of concord, and wished to see men occupy themselves with the republic. There was an apparent truce, and the attention of the assembly was directed for a moment to the new constitution, which the Mountain caused it to abandon, in order to decide on the fate of the fallen prince. The leaders of the extreme Left were driven to this course by several motives: they did not want the Girondists, and the moderate members of the Plain, who directed the committee of the constitution, the former by Pétion, Condorcet, Brissot, Vergniaud, Gensonné, the others by Barrère, Sieyès, and Thomas Paine, to organize the republic. They would have established the system of the bourgeoisie, rendering it a little more democratic than that of 1791, while they themselves aspired at constituting the people. But they could only accomplish their end by power, and they could only obtain power by protracting the revolutionary state in France. Besides the necessity of preventing the establishment of legal order by a terrible coup d'état, such as the condemnation of Louis XVI., which would arouse all passions, rally round them the violent parties, by proving them to be the inflexible guardians of the republic, they hoped to expose the sentiments of the Girondists, who did not conceal their desire to save Louis XVI., and thus ruin them in the estimation of the multitude. There were, without a doubt, in this conjuncture, a great number of the Mountain, who, on this occasion, acted with the greatest sincerity and only as republicans, in whose eyes Louis XVI. appeared guilty with respect to the revolution; and a dethroned king was dangerous to a young democracy. But this party would have been more clement, had it not had to ruin the Gironde at the same time with Louis XVI.

For some time past, the public mind had been prepared for his trial. The Jacobin club resounded with invectives against him; the most injurious reports were circulated against his character; his condemnation was required for the firm establishment of liberty. The popular societies in the departments addressed petitions to the convention with the same object. The sections presented themselves at the bar of the assembly, and they carried through it, on litters, the men wounded on the 10th of August, who came to cry for vengeance on Louis Capet. They now only designated Louis XVI. by this name of the ancient chief of his race, thinking to substitute his title of king by his family name.

Party motives and popular animosities combined against this unfortunate prince. Those who, two months before, would have repelled the idea of exposing him to any other punishment than that of dethronement, were stupefied; so quickly does man lose in moments of crisis the right to defend his opinions! The discovery of the iron chest especially increased the fanaticism of the multitude, and the weakness of the king's defenders. After the 10th of August, there were found in the offices of the civil list documents which proved the secret correspondence of Louis XVI. with the discontented princes, with the emigration, and with Europe. In a report, drawn up at the command of the legislative assembly, he was accused of intending to betray the state and overthrow the revolution. He was accused of having written, on the 16th April, 1791, to the bishop of Clermont, that if he regained his power he would restore the former government and the clergy to the state in which they previously were; of having afterwards proposed war, merely to hasten the approach of his deliverers; of having been in correspondence with men who wrote to him— "War will compel all the powers to combine against the seditious and abandoned men who tyrannize over France, in order that their punishment may speedily serve as an example to all who shall be induced to trouble the peace of empires. You may rely on a hundred and fifty thousand men, Prussians, Austrians, and Imperialists, and on an army of twenty thousand emigrants;" of having been on terms with his brothers, whom his public measures had discountenanced: and, lastly, of having constantly opposed the revolution.

Fresh documents were soon brought forward in support of this accusation. In the Tuileries, behind a panel in the wainscot, there was a hole wrought in the wall, and closed by an iron door. This secret closet was pointed out by the minister, Roland, and there were discovered proofs of all the conspiracies and intrigues of the court against the revolution; projects with the popular leaders to strengthen the constitutional power of the king, to restore the ancient régime and the aristocrats; the manoeuvres of Talon, the arrangements with Mirabeau, the proposition accepted by Bouillé, under the constituent assembly, and some new plots under the legislative assembly. This discovery increased the exasperation against Louis XVI. Mirabeau's bust was broken by the Jacobins, and the convention covered the one which stood in the hall where it held its sittings.

For some time there had been a question in the assembly as to the trial of this prince, who, having been dethroned, could no longer be proceeded against. There was no tribunal empowered to pronounce his sentence, no punishment which could be inflicted on him: accordingly, they plunged into false interpretations of the inviolability granted to Louis XVI., in order to condemn him legally. The greatest error of parties, next to being unjust, is the desire not to appear so. The committee of legislation, commissioned to draw up a report on the question as to whether Louis XVI. could be tried, and whether he could be tried by the convention, decided in the affirmative. The deputy Mailhe opposed, in its name, the dogma of inviolability; but as this dogma had influenced the preceding epoch of the revolution, he contended that Louis XVI. was inviolable as king, but not as an individual. He maintained that the nation, unable to give up its guarantee respecting acts of power, had supplied the inviolability of the monarch by the responsibility of his ministers; and that, when Louis XVI. had acted as a simple individual, his responsibility devolving on no one, he ceased to be inviolable. Thus Mailhe limited the constitutional safeguard given to Louis XVI. to the acts of the king. He concluded that Louis XVI. could be tried, the dethronement not being a punishment, but a change of government; that he might be brought to trial, by virtue of the penal code relative to traitors and conspirators; that he could be tried by the convention, without observing the process of other tribunals, because, the convention representing the people—the people including all interests, and all interests constituting justice—it was impossible that the national tribunal could violate justice, and that, consequently, it was useless to subject it to forms. Such was the chain of sophistry, by means of which the committee transformed the convention into a tribunal. Robespierre's party showed itself much more consistent, dwelling only on state reasons, and rejecting forms as deceptive.

The discussion commenced on the 13th of November, six days after the report of the committee. The partisans of inviolability, while they considered Louis XVI. guilty, maintained that he could not be tried. The principal of these was Morrison. He said, that inviolability was general; that the constitution had anticipated more than secret hostility on the part of Louis XVI., an open attack, and even in that case had only pronounced his deposition; that in this respect the nation had pledged its sovereignty; that the mission of the convention was to change the government, not to judge Louis XVI.; that, restrained by the rules of justice, it was so also by the usages of war, which only permitted an enemy to be destroyed during the combat—after a victory, the law vindicates him; that, moreover, the republic had no interest in condemning Louis; that it ought to confine itself with respect to him, to measures of general safety, detain him prisoner, or banish him from France. This was the opinion of the Right of the convention. The Plain shared the opinion of the committee; but the Mountain repelled, at the same time, the inviolability and the trial of Louis XVI.

"Citizens," said Saint-Just, "I engage to prove that the opinion of Morrison, who maintains the king's inviolability, and that of the committee which requires his trial as a citizen, are equally false; I contend that we should judge the king as an enemy; that we have less to do with trying than with opposing him: that having no place in the contract which unites Frenchmen, the forms of the proceeding are not in civil law, but in the law of the right of nations; thus, all delay or reserve in this case are sheer acts of imprudence, and next to the imprudence which postpones the moment that should give us laws, the most fatal will be that which makes us temporize with the king." Reducing everything to considerations of enmity and policy, Saint-Just added, "The very men who are about to try Louis have a republic to establish: those who attach any importance to the just chastisement of a king, will never found a republic. Citizens, if the Roman people, after six hundred years of virtue and of hatred towards kings; if Great Britain after the death of Cromwell, saw kings restored in spite of its energy, what ought not good citizens, friends of liberty, to fear among us, when they see the axe tremble in your hands, and a people, from the first day of their freedom, respect the memory of their chains?"

This violent party, who wished to substitute a coup d'état for a sentence, to follow no law, no form, but to strike Louis XVI. like a conquered prisoner, by making hostilities even survive victory, had but a very feeble majority in the convention; but without, it was strongly supported by the Jacobins and the commune. Notwithstanding the terror which it already inspired, its murderous suggestions were repelled by the convention; and the partisans of inviolability, in their turn, courageously asserted reasons of public interest at the same time as rules of justice and humanity. They maintained that the same men could not be judges and legislators, the jury and the accusers. They desired also to impart to the rising republic the lustre of great virtues, those of generosity and forgiveness; they wished to follow the example of the people of Rome, who acquired their freedom and retained it five hundred years, because they proved themselves magnanimous; because they banished the Tarquins instead of putting them to death. In a political view, they showed the consequences of the king's condemnation, as it would affect the anarchical party of the kingdom, rendering it still more insolent; and with regard to Europe, whose still neutral powers it would induce to join the coalition against the republic.

But Robespierre, who during this long debate displayed a daring and perseverance that presaged his power, appeared at the tribune to support Saint-Just, to reproach the convention with involving in doubt what the insurrection had decided, and with restoring, by sympathy and the publicity of a defence, the fallen royalist party. "The assembly," said Robespierre, "has involuntarily been led far away from the real question. Here we have nothing to do with trial: Louis is not an accused man; you are not judges, you are, and can only be, statesmen. You have no sentence to pronounce for or against a man, but you are called on to adopt a measure of public safety; to perform an act of national precaution. A dethroned king is only fit for two purposes, to disturb the tranquillity of the state, and shake its freedom, or to strengthen one or the other of them.

"Louis was king; the republic is founded; the famous question you are discussing is decided in these few words. Louis cannot be tried; he is already tried, he is condemned, or the republic is not absolved." He required that the convention should declare Louis XVI. a traitor towards the French, criminal towards humanity, and sentence him at once to death, by virtue of the insurrection.

The Mountain by these extreme propositions, by the popularity they attained without, rendered condemnation in a measure inevitable. By gaining an extraordinary advance on the other parties, it obliged them to follow it, though at a distance. The majority of the convention, composed in a large part of Girondists, who dared not pronounce Louis XVI. inviolable, and of the Plain, decided, on Pétion's proposition, against the opinion of the fanatical Mountain and against that of the partisans of inviolability, that Louis XVI. should be tried by the convention. Robert Lindet then made, in the name of the commission of the twenty-one, his report respecting Louis XVI. The arraignment, setting forth the offences imputed to him, was drawn up, and the convention summoned the prisoner to its bar.

Louis had been confined in the Temple for four months. He was not at liberty, as the assembly at first wished him to be in assigning him the Luxembourg for a residence. The suspicious commune guarded him closely; but, submissive to his destiny, prepared for everything, he manifested neither impatience, regret, nor indignation. He had only one servant about his person, Cléry, who at the same time waited on his family. During the first months of his imprisonment, he was not separated from his family; and he still found solace in meeting them. He comforted and supported his two companions in misfortune, his wife and sister; he acted as preceptor to the young dauphin, and gave him the lessons of an unfortunate man, of a captive king. He read a great deal, and often turned to the History of England, by Hume; there he read of many dethroned kings, and one of them condemned by the people. Man always seeks destinies similar to his own. But the consolation he found in the sight of his family did not last long; as soon as his trial was decided, he was separated from them. The commune wished to prevent the prisoners from concerting their justification; the surveillance it exercised over Louis XVI. became daily more minute and severe.

In this state of things, Santerre received the order to conduct Louis XVI. to the bar of the convention. He repaired to the Temple, accompanied by the mayor, who communicated his mission to the king, and inquired if he was willing to descend. Louis hesitated a moment, then said: "This is another violence. I must yield!" and he decided on appearing before the convention; not objecting to it, as Charles I. had done with regard to his judges. "Representatives," said Barrère, when his approach was announced, "you are about to exercise the right of national justice. Let your attitude be suited to your new functions;" and turning to the gallery, he added, "Citizens, remember the terrible silence which accompanied Louis on his return from Varennes; a silence which was the precursor of the trial of kings by nations." Louis XVI. appeared firm as he entered the hall, and he took a steady glance round the assembly. He was placed at the bar, and the president said to him in a voice of emotion: "Louis, the French nation accuses you. You are about to hear the charges of the indictment. Louis, be seated." A seat had been prepared for him; he sat in it. During a long examination, he displayed much calmness and presence of mind, he replied to each question appropriately, often in an affecting and triumphant manner. He repelled the reproaches addressed to him respecting his conduct before the 14th of July, reminding them that his authority was not then limited; before the journey to Varennes, by the decree of the constituent assembly, which had been satisfied with his replies; and after the 10th of August, by throwing all public acts on ministerial responsibility, and by denying all the secret measures which were personally attributed to him. This denial did not, however, in the eyes of the convention, overthrow facts, proved for the most part by documents written or signed by the hand of Louis XVI. himself; he made use of the natural right of every accused person. Thus he did not admit the existence of the iron chest, and the papers that were brought forward. Louis XVI. invoked a law of safety, which the convention did not admit, and the convention sought to protect itself from anti-revolutionary attempts, which Louis XVI. would not admit.

When Louis had returned to the Temple, the convention considered the request he had made for a defender. A few of the Mountain opposed the request in vain. The convention determined to allow him the services of a counsel. It was then that the venerable Malesherbes offered himself to the convention to defend Louis XVI. "Twice," he wrote, "have I been summoned to the council of him who was my master, at a time when that function was the object of ambition to every man; I owe him the same service now, when many consider it dangerous." His request was granted, Louis XVI. in his abandonment, was touched by this proof of devotion. When Malesherbes entered his room, he went towards him, pressed him in his arms, and said with tears:—"Your sacrifice is the more generous, since you endanger your own life without saving mine." Malesherbes and Tronchet toiled uninterruptedly at his defence, and associated M. Desèze with them; they sought to reanimate the courage of the king, but they found the king little inclined to hope. "I am sure they will take my life; but no matter, let us attend to my trial as if I were about to gain it. In truth, I shall gain it, for I shall leave no stain on my memory."

At length the day for the defence arrived; it was delivered by M. Desèze; Louis was present. The profoundest silence pervaded the assembly and the galleries. M. Desèze availed himself of every consideration of justice and innocence in favour of the royal prisoner. He appealed to the inviolability which had been granted him; he asserted that as king he could not be tried; that as accusers, the representatives of the people could not be his judges. In this he advanced nothing which had not already been maintained by one party of the assembly. But he chiefly strove to justify the conduct of Louis XVI. by ascribing to him intentions always pure and irreproachable. He concluded with these last and solemn words:— "Listen, in anticipation, to what History will say to Fame; Louis ascending the throne at twenty, presented an example of morals, justice, and economy; he had no weakness, no corrupting passion: he was the constant friend of the people. Did the people desire the abolition of an oppressive tax? Louis abolished it: did the people desire the suppression of slavery? Louis suppressed it: did the people solicit reforms? he made them: did the people wish to change its laws? he consented to change them: did the people desire that millions of Frenchmen should be restored to their rights? he restored them: did the people wish for liberty? he gave it them. Men cannot deny to Louis the glory of having anticipated the people by his sacrifices; and it is he whom it is proposed to slay. Citizens, I will not continue, I leave it to History; remember, she will judge your sentence, and her judgment will be that of ages." But passion proved deaf and incapable of foresight.

The Girondists wished to save Louis XVI., but they feared the imputation of royalism, which was already cast upon them by the Mountain. During the whole transaction, their conduct was rather equivocal; they dared not pronounce themselves in favour of or against the accused; and their moderation ruined them without serving him. At that moment his cause, not only that of his throne, but of his life, was their own. They were about to determine, by an act of justice or by a coup d'état, whether they should return to the legal regime, or prolong the revolutionary regime. The triumph of the Girondists or of the Mountain was involved in one or the other of these solutions. The latter became exceedingly active. They pretended that, while following forms, men were forgetful of republican energy, and that the defence of Louis XVI. was a lecture on monarchy addressed to the nation. The Jacobins powerfully seconded them, and deputations came to the bar demanding the death of the king.

Yet the Girondists, who had not dared to maintain the question of inviolability, proposed a skilful way of saving Louis XVI. from death, by appealing from the sentence of the convention to the people. The extreme Right still protested against the erection of the assembly into a tribunal; but the competence of the assembly having been previously decided, all their efforts were turned in another direction. Salles proposed that the king should be pronounced guilty, but that the application of the punishment should be left to the primary assembly. Buzot, fearing that the convention would incur the reproach of weakness, thought that it ought to pronounce the sentence, and submit the judgment it pronounced to the decision of the people. This advice was vigorously opposed by the Mountain, and even by a great number of the more moderate members of the convention, who saw, in the convocation of the primary assemblies, the germ of civil war.

The assembly had unanimously decided that Louis was guilty, when the appeal to the people was put to the question. Two hundred and eighty-four voices voted for, four hundred and twenty-four against it; ten declined voting. Then came the terrible question as to the nature of the punishment. Paris was in a state of the greatest excitement: deputies were threatened at the very door of the assembly; fresh excesses on the part of the populace were dreaded; the Jacobin clubs resounded with extravagant invectives against Louis XVI., and the Right. The Mountain, till then the weakest party in the convention, sought to obtain the majority by terror, determined, if it did not succeed, none the less to sacrifice Louis XVI. Finally, after four hours of nominal appeal, the president, Vergniaud, said: "Citizens, I am about to proclaim the result of the scrutiny. When justice has spoken, humanity should have its turn." There were seven hundred and twenty-one voters. The actual majority was three hundred and sixty-one. The death of the king was decided by a majority of twenty-six votes. Opinions were very various: Girondists voted for his death, with a reservation, it is true; most of the members of the Right voted for imprisonment or exile; a few of the Mountain voted with the Girondists. As soon as the result was known, the president said, in a tone of grief: "In the name of the convention, I declare the punishment, to which it condemns Louis Capet, to be death." Those who had undertaken the defence appeared at the bar; they were deeply affected. They endeavoured to bring back the assembly to sentiments of compassion, in consideration of the small majority in favour of the sentence. But this subject had already been discussed and decided. "Laws are only made by a simple majority," said one of the Mountain. "Yes," replied a voice, "but laws may be revoked; you cannot restore the life of a man." Malesherbes wished to speak, but could not. Sobs prevented his utterance; he could only articulate a few indistinct words of entreaty. His grief moved the assembly. The request for a reprieve was received by the Girondists as a last resource; but this also failed them, and the fatal sentence was pronounced.

Louis expected it. When Malesherbes came in tears to announce the sentence, he found him sitting in the dark, his elbows resting on a table, his face hid in his hands, and in profound meditation. At the noise of his entrance, Louis rose and said: "For two hours I have been trying to discover if, during my reign, I have deserved the slightest reproach from my subjects. Well, M. de Malesherbes, I swear to you, in the truth of my heart, as a man about to appear before God, that I have constantly sought the happiness of my people, and never indulged a wish opposed to it." Malesherbes urged that a reprieve would not be rejected, but this Louis did not expect. As he saw Malesherbes go out, Louis begged him not to forsake him in his last moments; Malesherbes promised to return; but he came several times, and was never able to gain access to him. Louis asked for him frequently, and appeared distressed at not seeing him. He received without emotion the formal announcement of his sentence from the minister of justice. He asked three days to prepare to appear before God; and also to be allowed the services of a priest, and permission to communicate freely with his wife and children. Only the last two requests were granted.

The interview was a distressing scene to this desolate family; but the moment of separation was far more so. Louis, on parting with his family, promised to see them again the next day; but, on reaching his room, he felt that the trial would be too much, and, pacing up and down violently, he exclaimed, "I will not go!" This was his last struggle; the rest of his time was spent in preparing for death. The night before the execution he slept calmly. Cléry awoke him, as he had been ordered, at five, and received his last instructions. He then communicated, commissioned Cléry with his dying words, and all he was allowed to bequeath, a ring, a seal, and some hair. The drums were already beating, and the dull sound of travelling cannon, and of confused voices, might be heard. At length Santerre arrived. "You are come for me," said Louis; "I ask one moment." He deposited his will in the hands of the municipal officer, asked for his hat, and said, in a firm tone: "Let us go."

The carriage was an hour on its way from the Temple to the Place de la Revolution. A double row of soldiers lined the road; more than forty thousand men were under arms. Paris presented a gloomy aspect. The citizens present at the execution manifested neither applause nor regret; all were silent. On reaching the place of execution, Louis alighted from the carriage. He ascended the scaffold with a firm step, knelt to receive the benediction of the priest, who is recorded to have said, "Son of Saint Louis, ascend to heaven!" With some repugnance he submitted to the binding of his hands, and walked hastily to the left of the scaffold; "I die innocent," said he; "I forgive my enemies; and you, unfortunate people…" Here, at a signal, the drums and trumpets drowned his voice, and the three executioners seized him. At ten minutes after ten he had ceased to live.

Thus perished, at the age of thirty-nine, after a reign of sixteen years and a half, spent in endeavouring to do good, the best but weakest of monarchs. His ancestors bequeathed to him a revolution. He was better calculated than any of them to prevent and terminate it; for he was capable of becoming a reformer-king before it broke out, or of becoming a constitutional king afterwards. He is, perhaps, the only prince who, having no other passion, had not that of power, and who united the two qualities which make good kings, fear of God and love of the people. He perished, the victim of passions which he did not share; of those of the persons about him, to which he was a stranger, and to those of the multitude, which he had not excited. Few memories of kings are so commendable. History will say of him, that, with a little more strength of mind, he would have been an exemplary king.